Efficient way to learn lots of songs

[pianocat3]

OK so I did it!  I called the nursing home and they do need a piano player. This is my plan to practice playing in public, but nursing home gigs were one of my goals when i returned to lessons. So I am getting together some songs that 80 and 90 year old folks may like, idk maybe 10. Maybe 20 lol! I am not great at fake book stuff yet so these are arrangements, not hard. Like moon river, in the good old  summertime, my wild Irish rose and so on. What is the best way to learn a pile of songs quick? I am not able to sight read them . I am too slow ( don't read by intervals yet). So I do have to learn them. They are much easier than my music for lessons. Thanks!!

[pianocat3]

I was hoping writing songs in the title of my post might attract attention ;-) but they are all songs.

Oh and I live in a farm area. Retired opera singers aren't likely to be among my audience.

[kawai_cs]

That was a great idea!You will learn some new repertoire, practice performing in public and earn some extra $. I am happy for you! I would do the same if not the fact that playing songs bores me to death Unfortunately I am not able to force myself to play anything else than classical repertoire.
I do not know how to learn those songs fast. I am sure @dcstudio and others will give you some good advice.

[pianocat3]

I like classical best too but wow am I full of nostalgia! Some of these songs, it's been 30 or more years since I heard them!

[pianocat3]

Oh wait! I wasn't clear. Better to learn say 5 songs well, then take on another group of 5, repeat repeat, or is it better to work on the lot of them at once so they are all under my hands a longer period of time?

[xdjuicebox]

What kind of music are you looking to play?

Know your theory really well. Like VERY well. Because this allows you to organize bigger clumps of music using smaller bits of thought.

For example, when playing certain classical stuff, all I remember is melody, alberti bass, and chord progressions (with inversions, and about what register it's in) and that is enough
And of course I know what it sounds like and what notes are being played

But the more you understand the music, the easier it is to remember, and best to pick simple music as well
For example, musically Hungarian Rhapsody 2 (Liszt) isn't very complicated, I memorized it in like 3 hours (I already know what it sounded like though, and it took another 7 months before I could actually kind of play it), since it's just a bunch of V-I's, scales, and chromatic stuff, and the modulations all make sense, whereas Debussy Etude X took me 2 months to memorize

[pianocat3]

These are actually old songs, music from movies or dancing from the 1940s mostly. Also there are what's called "standards" , tunes from the 1800s that are still around.
I probably won't play much classical. They are mostly elderly farmers.

I don't play well enough by ear to get it that way, but I should think harder about the chords and write them in and remember those transitions as chromatic scales, but you know, maybe a pitch is skipped or an accidental thrown in there.  I'm good at noticing chords when it's some alberti bass or whatever. But in the sections where the music arranger gets more creative, well then i have to read harder. I am not very good. Just out of the method books, so I think that would be early advanced. I am working hard on theory, but spent lots of time fiddling with Dorian mode LOL and not learning about harmony. I know about chord progressions, but not good enough to use that info yet. I play and read way better than memorize. It would be easy if it was new age piano, so much boring left hand work then only melody to worry about. I just don't wantbto get there and freak out and I should really change up my repertoire regularly, so that's a lot of practice. I figure I did it to myself but hmmm. I am practicing a lot more now!

[outin]

Why don't you get song books where they have only the melody notated and the chord names written above the staff? Then you only need to memorize the chord names and can read while you play. The songs are usually on same common keys so there really aren't that many chords you need to learn. With practice you should learn to vary the left hand to make it more interesting.

Then throw in some more challenging classical pieces every now and then to practice them