Helping my children build up a piano repertoire

[Oak Knoll Mom]

How do I help my children build up and maintain a repertoire of piano pieces?

What happens now is each piece is practiced for a week or so, then ignored when they move on to the next piece in the book. They never get to a point where a song is played really well, and once they move on, the older pieces are never played again. Their teacher doesn't offer any guidance because she's "anti required memorization."

 

If any of you remember my past problems with their teacher: All of my kids are moving to a new teacher in June, but I would like for them to be able to spend the next two months building a repertoire they can take with them.

 

Any advice or experience welcome.

[MtnTeaching]

Dd's teacher does not require memorization of a lot of pieces, but she does require a few, especially for recital and festival time.

 

Usually, she lets dd choose which pieces are favorite pieces and then asks if she could memorize them for her every month or so. It seems as if our teacher is more concerned that dd be able to move along in her playing, learn new concepts, and have the ability to pick up a piece and work her way through it, than she is with memorization.

 

I do understand what you mean, though.

[Oak Knoll Mom]

It seems as if our teacher is more concerned that dd be able to move along in her playing, learn new concepts, and have the ability to pick up a piece and work her way through it, than she is with memorization.

 

Yeah, that's exactly how this teacher feels. However, I want my boys to have a repertoire so they can just sit down at the piano and play--whether for fun, relaxation, or to impress the grandparents. :D

[Mom0012]

I was just recently pondering this myself. My daughter has been playing piano for a few years now, but does not have pieces she can just play when a grandparent or someone asks her.

 

I got a lot of great feedback when I asked about it on this board and one of the things I decided to do was have her memorize 5 pieces of her choice so that she will have the confidence to play for others when she wants to.

 

So far, she's memorized two pieces and is working on a third. I'm also having her go back and play songs that she learned a long time ago to practice sightreading.

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=352379&highlight=piano

 

Lisa

[SKL]

I have invested in Bastien's series of Favorite Classical Melodies, level Primer to 4. They are nicely arranged for the various levels. We practice one or two of these songs in addition to the piano teacher's assignment. (Well, one of my 5yos does. The other isn't quite ready yet.) I assume that over time, their favorites will be memorized.

 

I also encourage the girls to play around at the piano when we are not practicing. At those times, they generally revert to "old" favorites, which thus become more or less memorized in time. (One of my kids memorizes a lot faster than the other, though.)

[Twigs]

Wouldn't the Simply Charlotte Mason Memory System work for this?

 

You can either make a card for each song to memorize (song title and the book and page where it is found) and keep in a box, or make a binder with dividers to hold the actual music.

[Dmmetler]

My DD's piano teacher and I both encourage DD to keep several "Favorite" pieces that she plays just for fun, and that this is in addition to the ones she's working on. Her teacher also encourages transposing these into different keys, adding more complicated harmonies, and creating new arrangements, making them DD's own. When DD visited my parents at their church, she had a half dozen pieces completely memorized that she could sit down and just play, often with her own variations and flourishes.

 

DD also picks out a new piece that SHE wants to work on every couple of months in addition to her book repertoire-Print On Demand sheet music sites are great for this purpose, because you can go through a list, print out the first page of a half dozen possibilities, and let the child try them out before picking and printing one to work on.

[Ali in OR]

To develop/maintain a repertoire, you have to keep playing the old pieces. My kids end their practices by doing 3 review pieces and over the course of a week they're expected to hit everything in their repertoire at least once. For the harder pieces that they learn for Oregon's Syllabus program (a yearly evaluation of music theory, sight reading, and performance), I have them warm up with last year's pieces at the beginning of a practice, so those they learn very well. The downside to all of this is that it takes time. Their teacher wants them to maintain basically all pieces they ever learn, but I push back on that. It takes too much time to keep them all in shape, and that's time that can't be spent on learning new pieces. And there's only so much time in a day.

[kroe1]

Having a teacher who requires memorization would sure help. Our DD11's teacher requires almost all pieces to be played perfectly without the sheet music before moving to another piece. This can take several weeks. Luckily, he lets my DD pick more popular songs that she likes such as Disney tunes. The piano teacher is also DD's acting coach which is probably why he requires monumental amounts of memorization.

 

Since for the next few months you have a teacher who doesn't require memory work, then you'll have to require memorization yourself like the PP's said. Perhaps just starting with one song and then requiring it to be played regularly.

 

I hope your next teacher requires memorization. I realize my DD's teacher requires more than most, but it has been a good thing for her. She can now "feel" her movement over the keyboard. She associates a particular sound with a certain movement of her fingers rather than just notes on a page. Does that make sense?

 

Enjoy your musicians.

 

:)

[Another Lynn]

How do I help my children build up and maintain a repertoire of piano pieces?

What happens now is each piece is practiced for a week or so, then ignored when they move on to the next piece in the book. They never get to a point where a song is played really well, and once they move on, the older pieces are never played again. Their teacher doesn't offer any guidance because she's "anti required memorization."

 

If any of you remember my past problems with their teacher: All of my kids are moving to a new teacher in June, but I would like for them to be able to spend the next two months building a repertoire they can take with them.

 

Any advice or experience welcome.

 

Your current teacher's attitude towards memorization is the problem. Two of my dc have a new teacher this year and I cannot tell you how thrilled I am with the progress they have made compared to before. If you're solving that problem in June, in your shoes, I would consider waiting it out. Before our new teacher, my kids balked at the idea of memorizing pieces. Now they play a piece so long they practically have it memorized before she requires it of them. I would be cautious of prejudicing them against a different approach to piano before they even get to the new teacher, kwim? By the way, the pieces they are working on over a longer period of time are generally not from their "lesson" book, but more likely a beginner classical piece - they start out learning the "A" section hands alone. Then they work on hands together while they start learning the "B" section hands alone, etc. So, it takes a couple weeks just to learn the piece, and more to polish and finish memorizing it. They learn and grow SO much working on a challenging piece over a period of time rather than just doing the lesson book alone. So, my .02 is that I would wait. Additionally, mine are much more likely to sit down and play through pieces outside of "practice time" for fun, than they ever were before. It is fun (takes less effort) to play through something you "know" and if you've memorized it, you "know" it.