Your older repertoire

[hazypurple21]

I was just curious how everyone felt about this. Is it really necesarry to keep all of your pieces up to a high standard?

[TheHammer]

Heh, you forgot the "leave it alone until one realizes it is completely fallen apart, and has to be relearned from sratch"-option 

[BoliverAllmon]

I unfortunately tend to let them fall apart.

[jhon]

This is hard for as long as you hrow older, you learn more and more pieces and the challenge is to MAINTAIN them without sacrificng the learning of NEW pieces.  So, as you grow old, you seem to increase practice time - which would be something contradictory to your old age.

[jlh]

I frequently put my pieces through a "cooling off" stage before ignoring them and moving on to new repertoire.  After learning and performing a piece to my content, I will gradually ween myself from them over the course of a few weeks.  I do this by first playing through the piece several times during the day (NOT PRACTICING -- just playing) and a few days later I will play it a few times less, and every few days after do the same thing until I'm not playing it at all.  I've found that this is a good way to keep the piece in your fingers for easy recall if you need it for a recital or something in the future.

[trix]

As part of my warm-up, right after scales and arpeggios, I play thru one, two or more (depending on their lengths) of my old pieces, eventually cycling thru everything.  It really does help to keep rep fresh and current; it can be the difference between having to relearn a piece and having to merely dust it off.

[ako]

Heh, you forgot the "leave it alone until one realizes it is completely fallen apart, and has to be relearned from sratch"-option 

Yup...me too. I do dig up something I really like and play through them once in a while.

[quantum]

I do have a couple of old favourites that I play quite regularly.  Then there are the ones that I never practice, but always seem to be in the fingers whenever requested.  There are pieces that I play every once in a while, but need to brush them up a bit.  And there are pieces that I have played for a long time that I still can't perform the way I want, so I take them out ever now and again. 

A little bit of each for me. 

[dinosaurtales]

Heh, you forgot the "leave it alone until one realizes it is completely fallen apart, and has to be relearned from sratch"-option 

It's true.  That's the option I would have picked!

[Jacey1973]

Heh, you forgot the "leave it alone until one realizes it is completely fallen apart, and has to be relearned from sratch"-option 

I'm glad i'm not the only one who does this! Don't you just hate it though when you can't remember a piece anymore. It really is disheartening.

I've got half an hours repertoire memorised (that i performed in June) and i'm going to need it to form part of my hours repertoire for music college auditions (for masters degree) in November.

How do you reckon i could stop it from "going rusty"? I can still play them all pretty well at the moment (but then it is only just over a month since i performed them). My plan was to start working really hard on them again (i.e slow practise/finger work especially) in a few months, but just leaving them alone for now whilst i'm learning new pieces. A good idea or not? Suggestions?

[allthumbs]

As part of my warm-up, right after scales and arpeggios, I play thru one, two or more (depending on their lengths) of my old pieces, eventually cycling thru everything.  It really does help to keep rep fresh and current; it can be the difference between having to relearn a piece and having to merely dust it off.

Greetings

I do the same as you trix and I also try and play the more difficult pieces a little more often as they seem to deteriorate more if left for too long.

As the repertoire grows, the problem becomes finding the time (among learning new pieces) to keep them up to the level that one would like to. It's always a balance between learning new pieces and practicing the old.

I will be retiring in a couple of years, so I'll have more time to devote to the piano. What a great retirement hobby!

Cheers

[TheHammer]

I'm glad i'm not the only one who does this! Don't you just hate it though when you can't remember a piece anymore. It really is disheartening.

I've got half an hours repertoire memorised (that i performed in June) and i'm going to need it to form part of my hours repertoire for music college auditions (for masters degree) in November.

How do you reckon i could stop it from "going rusty"? I can still play them all pretty well at the moment (but then it is only just over a month since i performed them). My plan was to start working really hard on them again (i.e slow practise/finger work especially) in a few months, but just leaving them alone for now whilst i'm learning new pieces. A good idea or not? Suggestions?

Bernhard speaks on this matter: https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2485.msg21499.html#msg21499


And yes I hate it. But I think after relearning it one or two times a piece should stay in your hand. But then again, who has the time and the will to relearn one's pieces after half a year? How will I get new repertoire this way (especially, the more pieces you play, the more you have to relearn, ahhhh), as allthumbs says?

[BoliverAllmon]

Bernhard speaks on this matter: https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2485.msg21499.html#msg21499


And yes I hate it. But I think after relearning it one or two times a piece should stay in your hand. But then again, who has the time and the will to relearn one's pieces after half a year? How will I get new repertoire this way (especially, the more pieces you play, the more you have to relearn, ahhhh), as allthumbs says?

After relearning something a couple of times, I seem to take a day or two and then I will have the piece back up to par or even better than before.

[jeremyjchilds]

I keep them up (once a week-ish) playig piano is fun!

[BoliverAllmon]

how would you do that with a monster of a repertoire?

[quantum]

I find that as my repertoire grows, the number of pieces that I need to relearn becomes greater.  Yes it is indeed a pain to realearn them, but I find the more you practice relearing your pieces the easier and quicker it becomes.  Forgetting a piece is not altogether a bad thing, if you learned a piece a long time ago you may also be forgetting some of your bad habits that you used to use with the piece and instead incorporate new knowledge and interpretave decisions learned more recently. 

[jhon]

I'm glad i'm not the only one who does this! Don't you just hate it though when you can't remember a piece anymore. It really is disheartening.

This is the WORST feeling a pianist could have...

[Etude]

Concurred, but it's only happened with a few pieces, that I learned too quickly, like Ballade no. 1 or Sonate Pathetique.

[hazypurple21]

I sincerely wish I had the time to keep all my pieces in prime condition, because I love them so much, but once you get to a certain level of playing (not that I'm so high in this department) and your repertoire grows, it's difficult.

[pianowelsh]

I'm very naughty at letting pieces go As a college student i learnt so many pieces (which were difficult for me at the time) in a short space of time that i didnt really have time to repair old ones too. havings said that i do believe in a cooling off period. One of my teachers always used to preach that to know a piece 'properly' you had to play it continuously for a year then dont touch it for a while  then re-learn it for a few months and only then was it really 'ready' for public preformance. By this standard i have given very few performances which are really 'ready'  but i dont totally disagree with the ideology.  Realistically it is inevitable that some pieces in our repertoires will be lost but i have to say i am always amazed when i look at a piece i learnt maybe 5 years ago thinking oh dear this will be awful now but on playing it again (with the score at first) so much comes back and often i find that after perhaps a couple of hours work often the memory comes back - at least most of it! For me the biggest problem is in pieces with lots of leaping around. I find that i pretty much have to start from scratch with those because physically the sensations have to be relearnt/programmed.

[Bouter Boogie]

I always leave it alone Except for pieces which are very cool