While learning music can be done away from an instrument, at some point if we want to learn piano, we have to spend time at the instrument. Learning repertoire is the only way to learn how to play the piano. You will not learn how to play by learning scales, arpeggios, or any other exercises. Those can be useful additions, but they are not a replacement for learning pieces composed by real people. Everything we learn should be in the context of music.
After all, if the end goal is to play music, why not just do it from the beginning and enjoy the process of learning?
Finding the right level
The most difficult thing to do when self learning is probably picking pieces that are at the correct level. Our next piece should present at least one new challenge (technical, theoretical, or musical), but one that is within reach. Grading pieces is a difficult job, and one of the reasons why a great piano teacher can be so beneficial, is that they are able to find the exact right amount of difficulty to push you beyond your current level of capabilities.
If you are a beginner, knowing what will be too difficult or too easy is tricky. Luckily, there are professionals whose job is to curate and grade pieces. All of their work, as well as most of the sheet music they pick is available for free online.
Complete Beginner
If you are a complete beginner, I would recommend getting a method book like Alfred’s or Piano Adventures. This will introduce concepts in a gradual manner with real music that is enjoyable to play. I would only recommend the first few books, after which you can move on to the next stage.
Another great resource is Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos. Bartók was a Hungarian composer, musicologist and educator and his Mikrokosmos books make a great beginner resource because they begin from the very earliest stages and progress quite nicely. The music is nice, and inspired by folk music of that region. You will hear many different sounds, that might not be available to you in more traditional learning methods.
Late-beginner onwards
Once you are able to read sheet music comfortably for both staves and can play simple pieces with both hands, you can move on to a different learning method. Beginner books are great for beginners, but their utility decreases quickly as their progression is very slow.
Music examination boards provide carefully graded pieces, and these syllabi are available online for free. They are renewed every few years, and with a simple online search, you should be able to find them:
- ABRSM Piano syllabus
- Trinity College London piano repertoire list
- Royal College of Music piano syllabus
- London College of Music piano syllabus
When going through these syllabi, there will be a lot of pieces that are not in the public domain. The choice is yours whether you want to buy books, or find the music online for free. I would recommend finding as much as you can in the public domain, as there is so much music there.
Public domain pieces can be found at IMSLP.org
More is more
Years ago, I used to believe that anyone could learn any piece of music, given they spent the right amount of time on it. Now, I know that it is not that simple. A great teacher might be able to break down a complicated piece into manageable chunks for your given level, they might be able to provide all the tools you need to be able to play the piece. You might spend months mastering this one piece, and you might learn valuable skills along the way. However, after 6, 8, 12 months, you will have one piece to show for it.
Variety is important, especially early on. It familiarises you with the landscape of music and the different styles of different composers. It allows you to start finding your preferences. By having varied repertoire, you will have different challenges to overcome. In terms of motivation, variety is also important because you’re able to learn pieces (succeed) in shorter amounts of time.
For the first few years, I would aim to learn a new piece every few weeks. It’s fine to be ambitious every now and then, and spend more time on a special piece, but the majority of what you learn should be done within a few weeks.
Spending three weeks trying to solve one musical problem is probably not the best use of your time early on. During that time, you could have solved 5 different (albeit easier) problems and memorised and learnt to play a completely new piece.
Be curious, try to learn as much as possible. Stay focused on a few pieces at a time, but move quickly. There is little use in getting all pieces performance ready. It is important to do so every now and then, but taking a piece from 80% to 95% takes a lot of time, and most of the time, it’s not worth it.
Learn to read
In the quest of learning as much music as possible, you will realise that being able to read and to sight-read is an invaluable skill. Being able to read without difficulty means that you don’t spend any time deciphering the sheet music, and you spend all your time memorising it and solving problems.
Volume and reading ability work hand in hand: learning a large amount of music means that you get to practise reading a lot. Just like any other language, the more you read, the better you get.
I used to hate reading, I was bad at it, and avoided it all that I could. What that meant practically speaking is that I had to get my teacher to show me how to play a passage, and I would have to remember that. In hindsight, I can recognise that was a massive waste of time. I was relying on someone else to show me something instead of just learning it myself. The lesson time was wasted learning music when it could have been spent solving the issues I was having while playing. As I got better at playing piano, my reading didn’t follow at the same pace. I found myself being able to play passages quite easily but being unable to read them with the same ease. This is a common issue among pianists where their reading level is often below their playing level.
Let’s imagine you get called to play a gig with some people, their pianist just pulled out and you have a week to learn one hour of music. The music is relatively simple technically, and you wouldn’t have any issues playing it. However, if your reading is not up to par, this is not going to work. You will not have enough time to read and memorise all of that music to play the gig. You have to say no.
Let’s imagine you are asked to play some accompaniment for strings, or a choir. The music is dead easy to play, there is just a lot to read. Are you really wanting to spend your time learning and memorising this easy accompaniment music rather than spend time learning your actually challenging pieces?
If you can read as well as you can play, these are non-issues. You just show up on the day, having never looked at the music before, and you read and play it as well as you could read this text out loud now with basically no mistakes.
You might think this is impossible, but it isn’t. There are many examples online (although I understand the scepticism), and you can also go to any music university and see top students do this on a regular basis.
Having great reading ability used to be normal. Memorising pieces, on the other hand, was not. In the 17th century, there were fears that if people spent too much time with your music, they would memorise it, and go away and copy it. During those times, there was no such thing as ‘repertoire’, you played what was given to you on the day, and that was it.
As times have progressed, and the level of expertise has increased, we have put less focus on reading. I hope you are now convinced that it is detrimental to your long-term success to be unable to read.
For now, it’s enough to be convinced that reading is in fact useful. There is a deep dive into sight-reading, if you’re interested in improving that aspect of your playing.
Learn to remember
Let me tell you about a scenario that has happened so many times that I’ve stopped keeping count. I would hear a piece and be completely absorbed by it, I would spend weeks learning it, mastering it, making it sound exactly as I thought it should be played. By the time I finished it, I had already fallen for another piece and would start learning it straight away. I would spend weeks learning it, mastering it, playing it as I thought it should sound. Until I finished it, and found a new piece to work on. And that would go on and on. Eventually I would reflect on my repertoire and realise that I had mostly forgotten how to play the pieces I had previously learnt. When friends or family would ask me to play something, I would be unable to play what I had previously learnt, because I had forgotten it, and I would also be unable to play what I was currently learning, because it wasn’t performance ready. So I would spend all this time learning music, to be unable to play it for anyone in the end. This is one of the saddest things in music: remembering being able to play a piece, getting so much joy from it, and realising you can’t play it any more. It’s infuriating and demoralising.
My recommendation is to keep a list of pieces you know. You don’t have to put every piece you know on that list, but put the pieces you like on there. Once you have that list, make sure to revisit the pieces on there often.
The system that worked well for me was a system of spaced repetition. My list would have the date I last played it, and the date I should next review it. The review date was determined arbitrarily by me after playing it: if I found it difficult, I should look at it again soon; if, on the other hand, it was easy, I can safely ignore it for a little longer. You could also keep notes about the particular sections you struggled with and make sure to pay extra attention to them next time around.
There are many ways to organise this, the specific implementation doesn’t matter as much as finding something that works for you and makes you review your repertoire more regularly.
Take pride in your repertoire, treasure it as an expression of your musical tastes and identity. Learn music and don’t forget it.
Conclusion
To summarise: there is only one way to learn the piano, and that is to learn music. You must first find a piece at your level that will give you the correct amount of difficulty; various online syllabi will make that task easier. The more music you learn, the better you will get, so focus on volume, especially in the beginning. If you want to learn music faster, there is no skill that is more important than reading. Being able to read and sight read will mean that you can spend all of your time memorising and working on difficult sections, rather than deciphering the music on the page. Last but not least: remember your pieces, don’t learn them and forget about them. Keep playing them because you get enjoyment from it, and because you deserve to enjoy the fruits of your labour.
This chapter was meant to give you a high-level picture of learning repertoire. In the next chapter, you will learn the practical approach to learn a single piece.
