This is a great question and it’s something people don’t often consider. Most of the time people are used to the lesson plan of learning a new piece during the week – if you’re just starting it will probably only take you a week to learn – and then starting another piece the next week. The question is, what should you do with those older pieces and when you advance further in your playing, is it possible to work on two pieces at the same time?
When it comes to learning new pieces, it’s always a good idea to continue to practice the pieces you’ve already learned. It’s not worth forgetting about them. If you’ve taken the time to learn them, you should continue to reinforce them and expand your repertoire as much as possible. It’s much better to have a few pieces of music in your repertoire that you can play extremely well and as you continue to practice your older pieces you will be able to play them easier and more effectively. As you continue to learn new music and continue to practice all of your pieces you, will expand your repertoire very quickly.
Once you get to a certain point you might have too much music, which means that you might have to start dropping older repertoire to have the time to learn new pieces. This is a good place to be. It’s always great to have a solid repertoire you can refer to and once you begin to learn and master new pieces you can simply replace older ones you no longer like as much or you don’t think showcase your talents as well. Later you may revisit these pieces.
Instead of playing exercises, try playing your older music It can be more beneficial than simply practicing just exercises and it will allow you to refine your playing even more. I highly recommend playing older music as warm up exercises. You will become intimately familiar and comfortable with the music.
Once you advance to a certain level of music, it’s going to take you a long time to learn and master a new piece. If you’re entering competitions or playing recitals you will have to learn a lot of music all at the same time. It’s beneficial to practice each of your pieces at least thirty minutes to an hour a day – and many times you will have to practice much more than that. Learning one piece at a time simply isn’t feasible for a schedule like this and you will have to learn more than one piece at a time in order to keep yourself current with your music and the goals you’ve set for yourself.
So the short answer is yes, you should always practice more than one piece at a time, especially your review pieces in your repertoire because it only expands your personal music library and enables you to have many pieces on a high level at the same time. I know some people who simply learn a new piece each week and drop the older ones they were learning – they never have a piece that is on a high level they can simply play at a moment’s notice. The bottom line is that if you are to perform concerts, you must have a substantial repertoire under your fingers even though you can’t keep everything you’ve learned on a high level all the time.
Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729