how many songs to learn at once?

[leemond2008]

I'm pretty much a rookie when it comes to the piano/keyboard, at the moment I'm learning 'A day without rain' by Enya, Beethovens 'Moonlight sonata' and Queens 'somebody to love'

my problem is that if I spend too much time concentrating on one song the others seem to pop out of my head and I have to spend a good 1/2 hour giving myself a refresher on how to play the others.

I'm thinking of dropping the Queen song until I have perfected the other 2, is it worth just literally perfecting one before starting the other or would you say its beneficial to learn 2 at the same time?

[stoat_king]

I think this comes down to what suits you best.
If you cant remember more than 2 pieces, then stick to 2 pieces.
I tend to learn about 3-4 pieces at a time for the variety. If i get bored of one, i'll move onto the next.

[bronnestam]

I'm pretty much a rookie when it comes to the piano/keyboard, at the moment I'm learning 'A day without rain' by Enya, Beethovens 'Moonlight sonata' and Queens 'somebody to love'

my problem is that if I spend too much time concentrating on one song the others seem to pop out of my head and I have to spend a good 1/2 hour giving myself a refresher on how to play the others.

I'm thinking of dropping the Queen song until I have perfected the other 2, is it worth just literally perfecting one before starting the other or would you say its beneficial to learn 2 at the same time?

It is highly recommended to study several pieces in parallel. They will "help each other out".
Besides, you should not work with a certain piece more than, let's say, 20 minutes. After that (or after a time period you find out individually for YOU), your progress starts to deteriorate and keeping on struggling might even be counterproductive. But if you like piano playing, you probably want to play more than 20 minutes! So you do something else. You can come back to this first piece later that day, or wait until the next day - you will find out what works best for you.

About "perfection" - sorry, but you will never get there. Noone does.   You will always find something that could be improved just a bit more ... and that is how you drive yourself mad, eventually.

[leemond2008]

Oh I know about the perfection thing, I meant more along the lines of playing it fluidly and comfortably with no mistakes.

about the 20 minute thing I suppose that I am my own worst nightmare with that, as I only have a few things that I am practicing/ learning at the moment I often end up spending ages on the same thing, I'll try and practive more frequently at shorter intervals rather than longer sessions with fewer breaks and see how that works out for me.

cheers for the replys

[chopinlover01]

I'd recommend dropping the Beethoven actually. Playing the first movement well at this point is not a likely occurrence.

[slane]

Its good that you forget the other two. Seriously.
The method of spaced repetition for learning (such as used in anki flashcards) relies on the brain forgetting a thing, at least forgetting it a bit, and then being reminded. That process strengthens your memory of the thing much better than being asked the same question over and over.
Similarly, the bullet proof musician advocates blocked practice and random practice so that you maximise the times you say to yourself "now how does this go again?". That moment when you're reminding yourself how something goes is when you do your best learning.
When some sciencey dudes got some postal workers to learn some new methods and random blocks they learnt much faster than ones who worked for hours on the same thing, but they were very unhappy because it was hard work!
So think of your three pieces as blocks (and you can chop them up into smaller blocks) and mix the blocks up. Quite often I do really random practice and use a random number generator to generate bar numbers so I have the "how does this go?" moment over and over...
And its the bean bag principle. Kids who were asked to throw a bean bag into a bucket from 3 feet, did worse on the final test of throwing from 3 feet, than the kids who'd practised from 2 and 4 feet but not three. That's because practicing a skill in different contexts (i.e. the piano in different pieces) makes a more robust skill.
https://www.bulletproofmusician.com/why-the-progress-in-the-practice-room-seems-to-disappear-overnight/
https://www.bulletproofmusician.com/a-practice-strategy-that-will-help-you-play-more-accurately-when-it-counts/

[slane]

Oh and yeah ... the moonlight sonata first mov?? Not as easy as you think.

If you want easy beethoven there are the two sonatinas ANh 5.
The rondo from number 5 is particularly cute.

Jump to 1:13 to see the rondo... the dribbling on the piano isn't cute though.

When you've done the two sonatinas there's the op49s.
Start with the second mov of #2

Jump to 4:29
The first movement is allegro moderato, not allegro stupidly fast as barenboim plays is.

Then for something famous, try the adagio from the pathetique, but not until you've done the other four.

[chopinlover01]

I'd say that the second movement of the Moonlight would be better to end that set of pieces than the Pathetique, while the Pathetique is a better introduction to the sonatas.
Play 'em both. Just not yet XD