Why is there so little advice on maintaining repertoire vs. learning it?

[alforno]

I've noticed something: almost all practice advice focuses on learning new pieces (slow practice, hands separate, chunking, etc.). But once you have 20-40 pieces learned, the challenge shifts completely to
maintenance.
Yet there's barely any discussion about systematic maintenance practice. It's like everyone assumes you just "keep playing through everything" or only maintain pieces for upcoming concerts.
Is this just me? Does anyone actually have a maintenance system?

[rachmaninoff_forever]

. It's like everyone assumes you just "keep playing through everything" or only maintain pieces for upcoming concerts.

Because that’s how it actually is lol

I don’t know anyone who maintains music if they’re not performing it often or have plans on performing it soon.

However there is some music that stays with you forever.  You forget and relearn something enough times it kinda eventually becomes a part of your system

[alforno]

Because that’s how it actually is lol
I don’t know anyone who maintains music if they’re not performing it often or have plans on performing it soon.

I'm new here. Maybe your explanation is right, maybe not. Who knows?
What I know is that students in medicine, law, languages use spaced repetition to maintain knowledge for their entire careers. They understand what they learn has value for life.
Maybe the reason there are so few posts about maintaining repertoire in this performance forum isn't because nobody wants to. Maybe it's because nobody has found a good method yet.
If you could plug in a USB stick and have all your old repertoire back in long term memory, would you really say no? Or would you suddenly discover you DO care about maintaining what you learned?

[thorn]

I studied a language with spaced repetition (the Anki app) and it was very effective when used in the right way (many websites talk about this, won't get into it here). But I gave up SRS when I reached an advanced level because it was demotivating waking up every morning to hundreds of flashcards. And by the time you get to an advanced level you're engaging with native material which is basically natural SRS since you're encountering hundreds of words/grammatical patterns at once.

I'm not sure this directly translates to repertoire maintenance. Sure the advanced level pianist has several scale, arpeggio, chord patterns under their belt which enables them to absorb new scores, which is comparable to an advanced language learner picking up a newspaper. But you wouldn't treat an entire piece as a flashcard, that's like a language learner turning a book into a flashcard. In my language flashcards I had hundreds of sentences that came from books, so sure you could likewise make specific passages from a piece into a flashcard, but definitely not the entire piece. That wouldn't actually be a bad idea- when studying repertoire there are always bars that take longer to master than others so perhaps maintaining the difficult parts through SRS would help pick up the full piece later on.

I'm thinking aloud, sorry if that was rambling!

[alforno]

so sure you could likewise make specific passages from a piece into a flashcard, but definitely not the entire piece. That wouldn't actually be a bad idea- when studying repertoire there are always bars that take longer to master than others so perhaps maintaining the difficult parts through SRS would help pick up the full piece later on.

Good points about Anki fatigue and granularity.
I work at the movement level mostly, but you're free to break things up however makes sense. A long one-movement piece might become sections. A multi-movement work becomes separate movements. You can even add just the passages you tend to forget easily. Whatever feels like a natural unit to review.
The library is just a reference of what you want to keep in memory. You're not uploading scores or anything, just tracking what needs review and when.
The key is keeping daily review manageable. Maybe 5-10 items to touch today, not hundreds of flashcards. And pieces you mastered long ago go into verification buckets so they spread out naturally over time.
pianoenergy.ch/software if you're curious.

[dizzyfingers]

I've noticed something: almost all practice advice focuses on learning new pieces (slow practice, hands separate, chunking, etc.). But once you have 20-40 pieces learned, the challenge shifts completely to
maintenance.
Yet there's barely any discussion about systematic maintenance practice. It's like everyone assumes you just "keep playing through everything" or only maintain pieces for upcoming concerts.
Is this just me? Does anyone actually have a maintenance system?

As rachmaninoff_forever said, you just do it - - it takes a little bit of organization, but it doesn't take a ton of problem solving and skill acquisition like new pieces do.
Seems like you're over thinking it, tbh.
It's not difficult.  I do it.  Lot's of the serious pianists here do it, I'm sure.
For example:
- You mastered Chopin Ballade 1 last year (every beginner's dream).
- You make sure you play it every 4 weeks. It's going to take 10'.
- Maybe you work on some technical sections and spend 30' on it once in a while.

Medicine, Law, etc. are purely mental.  Playing an instrument is mental-physical; muscle memory counts.
Plus the the "mental space" of pieces a pianist might learn over 5 years of graduate work is smaller than the corresponding  body of knowledge in medicine or law.

[alforno]

What do we need to discuss?
You mastered Chopin Ballade 1 last year (every beginner's dream).

This question was more directed to professional piano students and pianists who build up a large repertoire, not hobbyists, as serious as they may be, who just play whatever they feel like at the moment...

[dizzyfingers]

This question was more directed to professional piano students and pianists who build up a large repertoire, not hobbyists, as serious as they may be, who just play whatever they feel like at the moment...

Yes, there is a difference, more a matter of degree than concept.
You might get answers from three on here.  And one of them has already answered you.

I don't blame you for getting miffed for being told your question is naive.  But no serious pianist - adult amateur, conservatory student or professional would worry much about it, not enough to require using an APP.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I've noticed something: almost all practice advice focuses on learning new pieces (slow practice, hands separate, chunking, etc.). But once you have 20-40 pieces learned, the challenge shifts completely to
maintenance.
Yet there's barely any discussion about systematic maintenance practice. It's like everyone assumes you just "keep playing through everything" or only maintain pieces for upcoming concerts.
Is this just me? Does anyone actually have a maintenance system?

Once you've learnt something to concert performance level (ie memorised it, performed it in public etc), you don't imo need to keep maintaining / refreshing it every few weeks. It should be "in your fingers" because you've learnt it properly and, as long as it's not something which is full of prohibitive mechanical difficulties, you should be able to bring it back to a completely functional level within a day or two, at which point it's time for a bit of fine-tuning.

[psipsi8]

Case in point: I had little difficulty in reviving my old pieces which I had played for my final exams, after about 15 years of not playing the piano. Because I had played them constantly for about two years back then, they were burned into my memory. I remembered even techniques like hand crossing. As opposed for example to learning new pieces from scratch.

[essence]

Did anybody mention that if you have a gap of a few years between performing a piece, your interpretation should have changed and matured?

Otherwise you may as well play a recording.

[dizzyfingers]

Did anybody mention that if you have a gap of a few years between performing a piece, your interpretation should have changed and matured?

Otherwise you may as well play a recording.

It's really about knowing where your fingers need to go, and knowing the score.  Interpretation can change from one week to the next, but you don't practice it - it's more like channeling it.  Or maybe it's those 1-2 days ronde_des_sylphes mentioned.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I'm new here. Maybe your explanation is right, maybe not. Who knows?
What I know is that students in medicine, law, languages use spaced repetition to maintain knowledge for their entire careers. They understand what they learn has value for life.
Maybe the reason there are so few posts about maintaining repertoire in this performance forum isn't because nobody wants to. Maybe it's because nobody has found a good method yet.
If you could plug in a USB stick and have all your old repertoire back in long term memory, would you really say no? Or would you suddenly discover you DO care about maintaining what you learned?

You could wake me up at 3am with a gun to my head and I could play Gaspard de la Nuit from memory without warming up.  It won’t be GOOD, but if someone was like hey I need you to do a last minute recital in a couple days I can pull it off.  Still wouldn’t sound good, but it’s good enough to convince your average listener.  I haven’t looked at the score in years.

It’s a waste of time maintaining something if you’re not playing it often enough.  But if it’s something you ARE performing a lot, you’re already maintaining it…. by virtue of performing it a lot.  And then eventually it’s just a part of who you are.  Martha Argerich doesn’t practice but if you told her to fly across the world to play prok 3 with just a sound check, she could pull it off.  While she’s jet lagged and sleep deprived. 

And idk man there’s a lot of music I’ve learned where as soon as I walk off stage my mind discards all the information cause I didn’t actually like it.  I did a Mozart concerto (I hate Mozart) with orchestra back in May and within 3 days of performing it I can’t even sing to you anything after the first two or three pages.  I couldn’t care less about maintaining it.  Or most of the music I play

[keypeg]

To the OP:  Does this thread and the question relate to the other thread, where you told us about software you developed for this purpose, and gave a link to that software?

This:

What I know is that students in medicine, law, languages use spaced repetition to maintain knowledge for their entire careers. They understand what they learn has value for life.

I am a linguist and use three working languages regularly, out of six languages that I have.  I learned the 6th in my fifties and dabbled briefly in Amharic after that.  I also have postgrad training in 2nd language teaching.

I had to look up "spaced repetition".  I have never used it, definitely don't use it to maintain my languages, and from what I saw, would not recommend it.  So no - we don't do that.  What I saw was like a replacement for flashcards and involved individual words.  It reminded me of the "dead language approach" to language learning that over here was seen as ineffective back in the 1970's at the time that I went to Teachers College.  Language in context, vocab in context, and experientially.  I think I recall music in a similar way as languages, and it seems to jive with what the experienced musicians who wrote in have related.

I did take one course in university that used the old approach, with memorizing vocab and grammar - Russian - and it was the most ineffective learning I had.  That is, Latin was taught the same way, but that is also literally a dead language. 

[dizzyfingers]

I did a Mozart concerto (I hate Mozart) with orchestra back in May and within 3 days of performing it I can’t even sing to you anything after the first two or three pages.  I couldn’t care less about maintaining it.  Or most of the music I play

That's an interesting anecdote - not one you hear often.  I'm curious, was the audience convinced you "were into" the Mozart Concerto?  Was the conductor and orchestra, the production company?  I mean, you want to maintain a good reputation, right?  You want the insiders and the audience to admire and like your playing, right?

[rachmaninoff_forever]

That's an interesting anecdote - not one you hear often.  I'm curious, was the audience convinced you "were into" the Mozart Concerto?  Was the conductor and orchestra, the production company?  I mean, you want to maintain a good reputation, right?  You want the insiders and the audience to admire and like your playing, right?

People think everything sounds good.  I did have a friend show up and she said I sounded like AI lol.  The orchestra had me back to do a recital for a fundraiser a couple months after so I guess it was okay?  I was kinda surprised about it tbh.

I want an audience to like my playing if I believe in it.  But if I don’t and the audience likes it then I feel like a fraud.  Which is like all the time lol.

I’m not famous so most of the music (I) wanna play isn’t the music that makes money.  But I have to live so I do it anyways

[morrisjd]

And then there are a few exceptionally talented pianists such as my piano teacher who could play flawlessly something that she hadn't played in years.  I believe she had some sort of photographic memory and visualized the sheet music in her head and since she was a fantastic sight reader could play it from scratch.  I remember her playing a piece for me that she wanted me to get at the music store. I asked her when was the last time she played it.  She answered 30 years ago.  As far as I could tell her repertoire was every piece of music she learned from the time she started on the instrument.

[lelle]

And then there are a few exceptionally talented pianists such as my piano teacher who could play flawlessly something that she hadn't played in years.  I believe she had some sort of photographic memory and visualized the sheet music in her head and since she was a fantastic sight reader could play it from scratch.  I remember her playing a piece for me that she wanted me to get at the music store. I asked her when was the last time she played it.  She answered 30 years ago.  As far as I could tell her repertoire was every piece of music she learned from the time she started on the instrument.

yeah that sounds like photographic memory to me. I have some pieces I learned well relatively young, such as the Moonlight sonata, that I can play for memory without having practiced it for years, but pieces I learned in my teens and 20's are not that way unless I really, really, really practiced them a lot.

[maul]

Once you've learnt something to concert performance level (ie memorised it, performed it in public etc), you don't imo need to keep maintaining / refreshing it every few weeks. It should be "in your fingers" because you've learnt it properly and, as long as it's not something which is full of prohibitive mechanical difficulties, you should be able to bring it back to a completely functional level within a day or two, at which point it's time for a bit of fine-tuning.

This is time dependent though I believe. There is a period which pieces are only slightly eroded and can be brought back with minimal effort. But wait too long, and they'll have to be restudied intently for a more extended period.

Even just a very occasional playthrough can be enough to avoid this, but I personally lack such discipline. I'm always looking toward the next piece, and the past gets easily swept away because it's no longer as interesting.

[dizzyfingers]

This is time dependent though I believe. There is a period which pieces are only slightly eroded and can be brought back with minimal effort. But wait too long, and they'll have to be restudied intently for a more extended period.

Even just a very occasional playthrough can be enough to avoid this, but I personally lack such discipline. I'm always looking toward the next piece, and the past gets easily swept away because it's no longer as interesting.

Agreed.  That gap period varies on how much time you spent learning/polishing the piece.  For me, it seems to return quickly if within 2 years.

[skari123]

I've noticed something: almost all practice advice focuses on learning new pieces (slow practice, hands separate, chunking, etc.). But once you have 20-40 pieces learned, the challenge shifts completely to
maintenance.
Yet there's barely any discussion about systematic maintenance practice. It's like everyone assumes you just "keep playing through everything" or only maintain pieces for upcoming concerts.
Is this just me? Does anyone actually have a maintenance system?

It is a good question, I think it has something to do with teachers and other pianists expecting that you know how to do it. It basically boils down to playing it regularly in different tempos. I remember as I was younger that pieces seemed to vanish quickly after I let them go for a while and It almost took the same effort to bring it back as if I was learning it for the first time. With increased skill this happens less often. I think the reason some pianists can keep a large repertoire is because they ingrain their pieces on a deep enough level that there is little effort that needs to be put to bring it back when they need to perform an older piece. The reality is that pianists rarely cycle 20 pieces at once, you always try to focus on the next deadline before you think about later engagements.