If your child has been studying piano for 4-6 years...

[Ali in OR]

I have a few questions for you! We have an end of year conference with dd's piano teacher and before going into that conversation, it would be helpful for me to have some kind of data on where other kids are at this stage of their piano career. If you wouldn't mind sharing, I would appreciate it!

 

1. How many years has your child been in lessons?

2. How many new pieces does your child learn in a year?

3. How many old pieces does your child keep in their repertoire? By that I mean pieces that they still play often enough that they can play them well on demand.

4. Does your child follow the Suzuki method or classical instruction (or something else?)

5. How many minutes per day, days per week does your child practice?

6. Does your child primarily work on pieces or does he or she spend significant time on theory and sight reading?

 

Thanks so much for sharing!

[Ginevra]

1. How many years has your child been in lessons?

2. How many new pieces does your child learn in a year?

3. How many old pieces does your child keep in their repertoire? By that I mean pieces that they still play often enough that they can play them well on demand.

4. Does your child follow the Suzuki method or classical instruction (or something else?)

5. How many minutes per day, days per week does your child practice?

6. Does your child primarily work on pieces or does he or she spend significant time on theory and sight reading?

 

My oldest has been in private lessons since she was 7, so 7 years. She had other group lessons before that. I have no idea how many pieces a year she learns, but she can also play just about anything by ear, so putting a number on it would be impossible. It takes her longer (maybe 4 weeks or so) to learn a longer piece by reading and then only keeps it in her repertoire if she wants to keep playing it. She was taught classically. She is required to practice her assigned music at least 30 minutes a day, but she will also sometimes play around with music for a couple of hours for her own pleasure. At this point, she is learning different techniques, such as how to play as a choral accompanist. This child has a lot of natural aptitude for music.

 

My middle has been in private lessons since he was 6, so 5 years. He is quitting now, though; he wants to learn guitar instead. He has not moved into the level of musical understanding that my daughter had by this point. IOW, he can still work through a piece, reading the music, but he's not that musical and does almost no interpretive or innovative work. He would spend 2-4 weeks on each new piece. He was also taught classically. He is required to practice 30 minutes/day and rarely plays around with music for pleasure.

[Matryoshka]

1. How many years has your child been in lessons?

 

Each about 6-7 years

 

2. How many new pieces does your child learn in a year?

It's slowed down now that the pieces are longer, so it's hard to gauge. My younger dd really hated a Chopin piece she was doing this year (that she had requested but changed her mind once she started), and that took forever.

 

One dd has done all of Suzuki Books 1 and 2 and part of 3, as well as Mastering the Piano books 2-3. My other dd has worked through parts of those books as well as Everybody's Perfect Masterpieces 3-4 - the teacher is trying to have them work different pieces so as not to compete, but they do end up learning some of the same pieces. This year they also each learned a Chopin piece out of yet another book.

 

3. How many old pieces does your child keep in their repertoire? By that I mean pieces that they still play often enough that they can play them well on demand.

When they were in Book 1, they could play all of Book 1 at the drop of a hat. This has changed as they've gone on. My younger, who picks things up quickly, also has a tendency to drop them quickly. The teacher occasionally assigns old pieces to "recover". My other dd has a few pieces that she seems to have learned so well that she can play them on demand at any time - but the number isn't huge (although she could still probably play all of Book 1). She could also probably recover old pieces fairly easily, but not on demand.

 

4. Does your child follow the Suzuki method or classical instruction (or something else?)

Suzuki

 

5. How many minutes per day, days per week does your child practice?

Our schedule is supposed to be that they practice every weekday that they don't have a lesson for 1/2 hr after breakfast and before lessons. They often don't achieve that, though. But somewhere between 20 min - 1/2 hour most days.

 

6. Does your child primarily work on pieces or does he or she spend significant time on theory and sight reading?

About 1/3 of the lesson itself is theory and sight reading. They get 1-2 pages of theory and 1-2 sight reading songs per week as homework. They started learning sight reading at the end of Suzuki book 1. One is now in Bastien 3rd level and the other is in Alfred Basic 2nd level (after completing Young Beginners levels 1-3 - they're slower paced).

[partyof5]

1. How many years has your child been in lessons? My oldest dd is completing her 6th year right now.

 

2. How many new pieces does your child learn in a year? Not sure...probably dozens in younger years, but this year (new teacher, more classical) she has spent more time focused on 5-8 much more challenging pieces.

 

3. How many old pieces does your child keep in their repertoire? By that I mean pieces that they still play often enough that they can play them well on demand. More at my request than her teacher's, I have them include older pieces in practice time fairly often, and as she gets older, she plays a few of her 0lder favorites without my asking.

 

4. Does your child follow the Suzuki method or classical instruction (or something else?) We've never had a specific method with earlier teachers (Alfred books to start), but this teacher is definitely more classical.

 

5. How many minutes per day, days per week does your child practice? Minimum 30 minutes per day, sometimes quite a bit more, but rarely less.

 

6. Does your child primarily work on pieces or does he or she spend significant time on theory and sight reading? Lesson time is mixed but at home, she works on her current pieces.

 

 

I love our current classical teacher. He is excellent at exposing dd to all kinds of music, explaining the relevant history, talking about how to play it musically to suit the feel of the piece...for example, a current piece is by Scott Joplin and it requires a whole different style than the Mozart piece she is also working on.

[Aggie]

We really can't compare how many pieces our dc learn and/or work on because they aren't the same length or on the same level. It may take one dd a month to perfect a piece, but in the same month, other dd may learn 2-3 pieces.:001_smile:

 

Older dd takes lessons against her will. :D She is quite a natural, but she has other interests. Her lessons are 30 min and she practices 30min/day, 6-7 days a week. Her teacher focuses on music dd wants/likes to play.

 

Younger dd loves the piano. Though not as naturally talented as older dd, she makes up for it in passion and hours on the piano. Lessons are 1hr, and she may practice 1-3 hours a day, 6-7 days/wk. Her teacher gives her challenging music and dd rises to the challenges. This dd finds it easier to keep several pieces in her repertoire.

 

Sight reading and theory make up a small portion of their lessons right now.

 

BTW, this year we'll have 2 different teachers. Younger dd will have a more intense, enthusiastic, driven pianist. Older dd will have a relaxed teacher.:001_smile:

 

What are your goals for your dc, musically?

 

Do they enjoy their music lessons and practice?

 

How do you like your piano teacher? It's ok to find a new one if you're not satisfied.

[LNC]

My daughter has been taking lessons for 5 years. She has played through Keys to the Kingdom books A-D with corresponding theory books, Alfred Masterworks Classics 1-3, several misc.theory/ music history workbooks and is now in John Thompson's Modern Piano 2nd grade with Masterworks Classics 4. She plays for 1 hour a day during the school year, and 30 min. per day in the summer. She does theory homework 2-3x per week. She does not keep up with old songs except to get ready for grandparents visits or for her own enjoyment.

 

I'm very curious about how to go about building a repertoire. She actually just started playing more original works instead of arrangements. Still very few so far. Do you think this book is original compositions instead of arrangements?

http://www.alfred.com/Products/Masterwork-Classics-Level-3--00-166.aspx

 

For fun summer playing, she was assigned "Dawn" from the Pride and Prejudice movie. But, it is the "easy piano" version. I'm dying to have her progress to the hard stuff - it sure takes a while... I'll be listening to everyone's answers!

Edited June 5, 2011 by LNC

[Ali in OR]

Thanks everyone for your input. I didn't want to skew any answers by revealing too much of where we're coming from, but if you're curious, here's what we need to talk about with dd's teacher.

 

My dd is completing her 5th year of piano. Her teacher is a Suzuki teacher, but after a year or two we chose to not really follow the Suzuki method for our family (but still with the same teacher and she was willing to work with us the way that we wanted). There is an Oregon Music Teachers Association program called Syllabus that we have been pursuing. The piano student can be evaluated on music theory, sight reading, and 3 performance pieces from different periods and there are 10 levels. Dd has been doing a level per year and we really like the program. Dd's teacher is saying for the next level (level 5) she really needs to have a lot more depth and breadth to be playing at that level. We agree that she needs to learn more pieces in a year. But she thinks she has steered us wrong by allowing us to not do Suzuki, as a Suzuki student would have completed books 1,2 and 3 and have 50 pieces in their repertoire now (she says). I'm thinking dh and I are more in line with a classical piano method. We both took lessons, he still plays well and often. Neither of us think we could keep a repertoire of 50 songs in good shape and still learn new pieces too. We have a time problem where we just can't fit everything in. We learn a lot of theory and work on sight reading in our practice time. Dd probably does 45 min-1 hour per day (weekdays), plus some extra work on scales on her own, and it seems like we only have about 20 min to work on new pieces and almost no time or energy to work on review pieces beyond just making sure she remembers how they go. I'm not sure if her teacher is going to recommend that she goes back to Suzuki books 1 & 2 (we don't want to do that), but she has said she might need two years to do Syllabus level 5. I can see needing 2 years to do a syllabus level, but not when you're still at 5. Maybe 8, 9, or 10. Dd is a decent piano student, but not unusually gifted musically.

 

Thanks again for your input. It helps me to know that there is a range of experiences, and that not everyone has a repertoire of 50 songs AND time to learn a lot of new pieces AND learns a lot of theory AND has mastered the art of sight reading! We've worked out our differences in conferences before--we'll see what happens this go around.

[Ali in OR]

I'm very curious about how to go about building a repertoire. She actually just started playing more original works instead of arrangements. Still very few so far. Do you think this book is original compositions instead of arrangements?

http://www.alfred.com/Products/Masterwork-Classics-Level-3--00-166.aspx

 

 

That book sound like it is original works to me. For repertoire building, I would like my dds to keep the pieces they have learned for their Syllabus evaluations in good shape. We learned after our second year that if they don't get played regularly, they get lost. I'm okay with forgetting some of the Suzuki pieces (shhh...don't tell our teacher that!) or the easy Christmas pieces they've done for the Christmas recital. But anything they work on for half a year, I would like them to keep those pieces in their memory banks. So we play them regularly.

[Ginevra]

It helps me to know that there is a range of experiences, and that not everyone has a repertoire of 50 songs AND time to learn a lot of new pieces AND learns a lot of theory AND has mastered the art of sight reading! We've worked out our differences in conferences before--we'll see what happens this go around.

 

Ali, I don't know if this helps you, but my goal for my kids in piano was not that they would have a certain number of songs in their repertoire. To me, mastering an instrument is knowing how to sight-read, knowing how to play by ear and then understanding transposition, chords and improvisation. With those elements, a person can sit down to the piano and just play beautifully any song, not just be a one-trick pony who plays the songs they've currently practiced. To me, it seems unsustainable to try to keep a large repertoire just by repeating "old" songs in the midst of learning new songs. My dd has met (and exceeded) what I hoped for in piano lessons. She can learn songs by reading the music, but she can also "fake" her way through practically any song if she knows the melody.

 

I'm not sure, though, if any person can obtain that through lessons or if that speaks more to innate ability. DD was very musical from an early age. Lessons have just given her more and more tools to use that ability.

[Kim in Appalachia]

It's time for you to find a new teacher. Your family and this teacher are on different pages, so to speak. You need someone more in line with how you are thinking. My dd has been playing piano for 9 years. She does not have 50 songs in her repertoire. She does have to memorize songs for recitals and for Guild, and while she has done over 50, she couldn't just sit down and play them perfectly still. She would need to polish them up. Her teacher (Who is a professor at a University, judges competitions, and has been teaching for a long time) is more concerned with her students reading music well, understanding the theory, and being able to have expression in their pieces.

 

You want a more traditional approach, then you are going to need to find a traditional teacher. You will end up being frustrated by your teacher (who could be an excellent Suzuki teacher!) and frustrating her.

[Cindyz]

Thanks everyone for your input. I didn't want to skew any answers by revealing too much of where we're coming from, but if you're curious, here's what we need to talk about with dd's teacher.

 

My dd is completing her 5th year of piano. Her teacher is a Suzuki teacher, but after a year or two we chose to not really follow the Suzuki method for our family (but still with the same teacher and she was willing to work with us the way that we wanted). There is an Oregon Music Teachers Association program called Syllabus that we have been pursuing. The piano student can be evaluated on music theory, sight reading, and 3 performance pieces from different periods and there are 10 levels. Dd has been doing a level per year and we really like the program. Dd's teacher is saying for the next level (level 5) she really needs to have a lot more depth and breadth to be playing at that level. We agree that she needs to learn more pieces in a year. But she thinks she has steered us wrong by allowing us to not do Suzuki, as a Suzuki student would have completed books 1,2 and 3 and have 50 pieces in their repertoire now (she says). I'm thinking dh and I are more in line with a classical piano method. We both took lessons, he still plays well and often. Neither of us think we could keep a repertoire of 50 songs in good shape and still learn new pieces too. We have a time problem where we just can't fit everything in. We learn a lot of theory and work on sight reading in our practice time. Dd probably does 45 min-1 hour per day (weekdays), plus some extra work on scales on her own, and it seems like we only have about 20 min to work on new pieces and almost no time or energy to work on review pieces beyond just making sure she remembers how they go. I'm not sure if her teacher is going to recommend that she goes back to Suzuki books 1 & 2 (we don't want to do that), but she has said she might need two years to do Syllabus level 5. I can see needing 2 years to do a syllabus level, but not when you're still at 5. Maybe 8, 9, or 10. Dd is a decent piano student, but not unusually gifted musically.

 

Thanks again for your input. It helps me to know that there is a range of experiences, and that not everyone has a repertoire of 50 songs AND time to learn a lot of new pieces AND learns a lot of theory AND has mastered the art of sight reading! We've worked out our differences in conferences before--we'll see what happens this go around.

 

We have been doing Suzuki piano for almost 4 years as my son started when he was almost 2 (basically 3). One way that we keep all of his songs fresh is by using this memory book which is actually for memorizing poetry. We use it for poetry too, but we also use it for our Suzuki pieces. We have the piece we are currently learning in the daily slot, the pieces recently mastered in even and odd days and then 2 or 3 songs on each day of the week. So for instance, today he practiced his daily song, played the song for odd, and then played 2 songs for Sunday. Each day he will always work on his daily song, but there will be different older pieces that he will play to keep them fresh. Another nice thing about using this notebook method is he can do some of his practice on his own and knows exactly what he should be doing just by looking at the notebook.

 

Here's the link for the notebook pages.

 

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2uLJHGaFdQ9OGRhNTBhNmItNWVlMS00YTE4LTk5OTktOTNiMTI1MTQ1OGMw&hl=en&pli=1

[mktkcb]

lets see, ds has taken piano 7 years.

he probably learns 6-8 pieces over the course of the year.

I honestly don't know how many I would consider him to have in his repetoire. He memorizes easily, but I know there are pieces he has forgotten about. And certain ones he like to play over again. He also works on scales, cadences, arpeggios, and other technical miscellanies in preparation for the Certificate of Merit program every year.

Teacher teaches classical, not Suzuki.

Ideally, son practices all the pieces he needs to 6 days a week. Usually we're doing well if he gets in 45-60 min.

Theory is fairly separate from practicing. We make it more a part of school. He does Basics of Keyboard theory book every year, plus another thinner one, both geared to cm (he finished level 7 this spring).

ds *should* sight read more frequently, but we tend to hit it harder in the spring right before Certificate of Merit, because they test that. He's fortunate that he is naturally pretty good at sightreading, so he always has tested fine.

 

all that being said, son's music teacher is an excellent teacher, all her students are required to do Certificate of Merit every year, so there is something to work toward. She is also very geared to finding music to match the interests and bent of each student, and is very good at individualizing her approach for each student. Meaning she knows the strengths and weaknesses of most of the piano methods out there, so can pick and choose among them for her beginners, and knows the right time to transition out of a method (she typically does so around level 3) to standard classical/other repetoire, ie not going straight through a method book but choosing pieces for them.

[Hillary in KS]

1. How many years has your child been in lessons?

Child A- 7 years

Child B- 4 years

Child C won't be counted in, as he's only played for 2 years. :)

 

2. How many new pieces does your child learn in a year?

Child A- 10-15

Child B- Quite a few. He's working through Faber 4A.

 

3. How many old pieces does your child keep in their repertoire? By that I mean pieces that they still play often enough that they can play them well on demand.

Child A- We work on reviewing older pieces so that they are still familiar. When he masters a piece it goes on "The List." List pieces are run-through once a week, or so, to keep them familiar. I think he could play for 30-45 minutes using "List" pieces.

Child B- He could play a few favorites, I think. Maybe 4 songs, or so?

 

4. Does your child follow the Suzuki method or classical instruction (or something else?)

Child A and B both worked through the Faber books. Once Faber 5 was finished, Child A moved on to more classical training. Child B will as well.

 

5. How many minutes per day, days per week does your child practice?

Child A- 90-120 minutes

Child B- 30-45 minutes

 

6. Does your child primarily work on pieces or does he or she spend significant time on theory and sight reading?

Child A- I've never timed it, but I would guess that he spends about 30 minutes on theory and drills (scales, etc.), and the rest of the time working on pieces.

Child B- Spends about 15 minutes working on drills and theory, and the rest of the time on the songs.

[myfunnybunch]

I have a few questions for you! We have an end of year conference with dd's piano teacher and before going into that conversation, it would be helpful for me to have some kind of data on where other kids are at this stage of their piano career. If you wouldn't mind sharing, I would appreciate it!

 

1. How many years has your child been in lessons?

2. How many new pieces does your child learn in a year?

3. How many old pieces does your child keep in their repertoire? By that I mean pieces that they still play often enough that they can play them well on demand.

4. Does your child follow the Suzuki method or classical instruction (or something else?)

5. How many minutes per day, days per week does your child practice?

6. Does your child primarily work on pieces or does he or she spend significant time on theory and sight reading?

 

Thanks so much for sharing!

 

1. He's just ending his 6th year of lessons. *sniff* He started when he was 4. We just came home from the year-end recital, and the little ones were SO cute. Now he's one of the big kids, well, medium anyway. He's grown up so much!

 

2. Hmm...depends on the year. This year he's learned 6 Suzuki pieces and 4 non-Suzuki pieces (one was a Christmas ragtime, so no maintenance). He might have learned more, though, except he hit a busy time and bogged down a bit, then immediately after decided he wanted to try to do the OMTA piano evaluation so started preparing, which meant learning new theory skills and ultra-polishing current pieces.

 

3. Our teacher asks most students to maintain 6-8 pieces in the Suzuki repertoire, plus at least 1 non-Suzuki piece. She has some students who prefer to maintain almost all of their Suzuki pieces, but calls it by ear according to student.

 

4. Suzuki. His teacher does modify the method slightly according to student needs, and has added some jazz/ragtime to his instruction because he is really inspired by those pieces.

 

5. 6 days a week, 45 min.-1 hour per day. His teacher asks students to practice 6 days/week, and that daily practice length match lesson length, so 45 min. of daily practice for a child taking 45 minute lessons. Next year, my ds will take 1 hour lessons, and we'll structure our schedule for about 1 hour to 1 hour, 15 minutes of practice.

 

6. He spend roughly 15-20 min. on theory, including scales and related skills, rhythm reading, sight reading. So that's 1/3 of his practice time. This is typical for students (past Book 1) at this studio.

 

HTH. :)

 

Cat

[myfunnybunch]

she has said she might need two years to do Syllabus level 5. I can see needing 2 years to do a syllabus level, but not when you're still at 5.

 

My ds prepared for Level 5 starting in February, for the May evaluation. If he'd started sooner (say December or January) he'd have been completely prepared, he just had to re-learn the way he played his scales and related skills. (He'd been taught well, just differently). He ended up feeling unprepared, with which his teacher and I agreed, but he did an excellent demonstration instead. His evaluator said he'd have passed the evaluation with flying colors if he'd been completely prepared on the last set of scales.

 

My ds is completing book 2, partly because he learns new pieces slowly but thoroughly and partly because he learns additional pieces outside the Suzuki repertoire. His later book 2 pieces satisfied the Level 5 difficulty requirements, and are lovely. I'd think if doing Suzuki Book 2 would be a review level for your dd, then she could easily prepare for Level 5 in one year.

 

Of course I'm not her teacher, lol, just based on what I've seen of the evaluation. :)

 

Cat

[Marie in Oh]

dd, 9 just completed 4th year total, 2nd year in a classical studio at a university with a piano pedagogy program. Her teacher is the director of the program.

 

She participates in the National Federation of Music Festival and the National Piano Guild Audition each spring. We like Federation and Guild because it gives them a goal to work for.

 

For Federation she plays 2 peices memorized and perfected, and for Guild she played 12 memorized, plus chords, scales, arppeggios, site reading, etc. They are rated and graded for each event. It is tons of work, but she absolutely loves it. Next year she gets to do a concerto as well as the other events. She is so excited.

 

She can still play many of last year's pieces this year with little effort.

 

She practices 45-60 minutes/ 5 days a week.

 

Her teacher has her work through Snell theory during the year, but when Federation and Guild are approaching, she lets them slack and then they pick it up during summer lessons which are much more realxed.

 

My other dd 7 just completed her first year with this teacher, 2nd year total in lessons and did all the same events at a lower level.

 

We love their teacher and she is amazing with them. They don't even know they are working as hard as they are. They have alot of breadth and depth to their pieces, plus they are pretty to watch. She also keeps an eye on injuries. Who knew pianists can be injured. She is always watching for bad habits and correcting them gently so that they don't hurt themselves down the road.