Where did the 40 Piece Challenge begin?
I honestly didn’t expect the 40 Piece Challenge to go global the way it has quite as rapidly as it
repertoire-rich teaching
Six Rules About Repertoire
These six rules are: for piano teachers, about students and their repertoire, covering motivation, sequencing, development and quantity. I’ve discussed
The Hal Leonard Australia 40 Piece Challenge 2013: suggestions for getting started
In 2013 Hal Leonard Australia is running a 40 Piece Challenge. And I’m very excited by this news. The challenge is to teachers primarily – can your students each learn at least 40 new pieces in 2013?! This challenge is not a random, out-of-the-blue event. There’s a massive back-story to the development of this 40-Piece Challenge, which you can read about here. But the point of the whole exercise is to encourage students to learn, perform and experience far more music than our exam-focussed culture usually allows. And to do so in order for students to develop much better reading skills and much broader musicianship, which will lead our students to be more likely to play the piano for the rest of their lives (no matter what grade exam they make it to before they stop taking piano lessons). This post isn’t about convincing you that this challenge is a good idea – there are plenty of posts I’ve written
read more The Hal Leonard Australia 40 Piece Challenge 2013: suggestions for getting started
Repertoire Rules (for students)
These rules are rules about students and repertoire, but really these are more rules for piano teachers… So for any students reading this post – this is the stuff your teacher should know! In the 11 month history of my blog I’ve discussed how students having access to more books of music is going to have a positive impact on their musical literacy, and how learning a large number of pieces each year will have commensurate educational benefits. I’m not going to rehash either of these posts, but rather cut straight to: what are the rules we need to apply to students and their repertoire? First up: a rule of thumb. If your student learns less than 26 pieces per annum they will be bored. They may not tell you they are bored, but they are. If learning 6 pieces a year truly engages their curiosity they must be almost entirely disinterested in learning to play the piano. On the other
Elissa Milne 