New Year, New Approach - 40 Pieces Challenge 2025

Nightowl

I began learning piano 20 November 2023, using Alfred's AIO self teaching books. Those books have served me well so far, and I appreciate their sound methodology. However, I have had enough of ploughing through pieces I don't like, so once I finish book 2 I will be saying goodbye to Alfred and plotting my own course. I have decided to tackle the 40 pieces a year challenge, which seems like a great way for me to improve my sight reading and keep the momentum going.

Here is a link to an article which outlines the concept:
https://elissamilne.com/2015/02/04/where-did-the-40-piece-challenge-begin/

I think this challenge is manageable provided that the pieces are at a level which aligns closely with a player's existing skill set (or one grade lower/higher). The target number of pieces seems feasible for beginners/intermediate players, as it equates to learning one piece every 9 days. However, this target may not be suitable for advanced players who are tackling complex pieces to pass exams or perform in a professional setting, hence I've placed this thread in the Learner's Lounge.

I aim to update my progress at the end of each month, by listing titles/composers of the pieces I have played to a reasonable standard, along with some brief comments about the ease/difficulty of each piece played. Is anyone else up for this challenge?

WieWaldi

Nightowl The target number of pieces seems feasible for beginners/intermediate players, as it equates to learning one piece every 9 days. However, this target may not be suitable for advanced players who are tackling complex pieces to pass exams or perform in a professional setting, hence I've placed this thread in the Learner's Lounge.

This is true. However, I strongly vote to count an advanced piece as more pieces with a simple rule: Each movement section/part/chorus/whatever counts as a single piece. This does not address easy vs difficult, but it addresses short vs long. About the difficulty level, this challenge is to master 40 pieces in a year, meaning you must do whatever is easy enough for you to reach 40. Remember - the concept behind this this challenge is based upon the surprising power of quantity.

WieWaldi

Nightowl Is anyone else up for this challenge?

I am thinking about this question for many months and still don't have a good answer. Currently, I am doing the Easy Blues Piano Course, and I have really no idea how to count a single lesson. Normally, a lesson contains several examples or licks. If I count it as a piece, I am never able to come close to 40, if I count every lick, I am above. But honestly, a single lick is way shorter than an entire piece and the number 40 wouldn't be a challenge anymore...

Anyway, I think I will join this 40-pieces club. But: If I do a real piece, I count the sections. And about lessons, I am grateful for ideas...

Sophia

Nightowl Is anyone else up for this challenge?

What a lovely idea Nightowl 🥰 If I were still in Alfred one, I would have said yes quickly. But now that I'm approaching ~~old age~~ total beginner stage, I'm no longer sure I could.

Right now it takes me about a week to learn a piece, but then at least an additional week or two to get it to an acceptable level. Same with the blues course, I average about three weeks now to learn my lesson. Even combined that would not add up to 40 pieces a year.

This means I'm stretched a little thin already, so I don't think adding even an easy book according to Bart's bulleted list would be a good idea just yet 😆

I did enjoy that thread on PW though, so I'm glad you started the challenge here too! I think I will pass this upcoming year, but next year... who knows 🤩

Gooseberry

Nightowl Count me in!

But I would like to make sure that we are free to define by ourselves what we consider as “a piece” and to what degree the piece should be “learned”.

Like @ShiroKuro, I keep a piano journal where I put down what I have practised or played every day (as well as what I should be focusing on the next day or week), and it turns out that so far I’ve learned this year 22 pieces. But if I count also the exercises or short studies, there would be many more (around 50 I think). For those exercises I use the books from the “Fingerpower” series (these are one-page strictly technical exercises), or from the Polish collection of Studies for Piano ed. by S. Raube, or the books by Jakub Metelka (these are usually short, but often quite difficult, so they take me a bit longer to learn), as well as other short studies. As soon as I can play them as required (accurately, smoothly, with correct articulation, and more or less up to tempo) I consider them as learned. So if I can count at least some of them into the number of pieces I learn throughout the year, I will probably meet the challenge and be happy.

After all, if I understand it correctly, the rationale behind this challenge is to improve our skills by getting acquainted with a greater variety of music, and also become better at sight reading in the process?

BartK

WieWaldi However, I strongly vote to count an advanced piece as more pieces with a simple rule: Each movement section/part/chorus/whatever counts as a single piece.

A piece is whatever the person learning it decides is a piece. If you want to study the first page or just the first phrase of a longer piece and call that a piece that's fine. If you want to study an 8 bar exercise and call that a piece that's fine too. Just remember the guidelines that I wrote in my post above.

Nightowl

WieWaldi I strongly vote to count an advanced piece as more pieces with a simple rule: Each movement section/part/chorus/whatever counts as a single piece. This does not address easy vs difficult, but it addresses short vs long. About the difficulty level, this challenge is to master 40 pieces in a year, meaning you must do whatever is easy enough for you to reach 40. Remember - the concept behind this this challenge is based upon the "surprising power of quantity" [see link in original post].

I like that idea, it's a way of tweaking things so that people who are playing more advanced pieces can credit themselves for tackling longer, complex pieces. For instance, a Chopin piece might easily be 3 or 4 times more difficult than a piece from Alfred's book 1, so could justifiably count as 3 or 4 pieces for the purpose of this challenge.

@BartK I see the reasons why you recommend sticking to the original rationale of the concept to gain the maximum benefits, but I can also see why people might like to adapt the concept to suit their own playing level/preferred practice methods - it's rarely the case that "one size fits all".

I think it's fine to adjust the target number down a little, to take personal circumstances/difficulty factors into account. Maybe I should change the thread title to read "40(ish) Pieces" or "30-40 Pieces"?

@Animisha If you prefer to work on stretch pieces I can see why it might be hard to reach the target of 40 (easy) pieces a year in addition to those stretch pieces. Perhaps you could set your own personal target lower - how about 25 a year? Is it doable to play one easy piece over the course of 2 weeks, as well as your other pieces? The easy pieces might be a refreshing break from the stretch pieces.

Animisha

That was a very interesting read!

About participating though, there is this problem: I am too slow in learning new pieces.
On the one hand, just as your article says, I practise and I have practised a vast number of pieces at every level I’ve reached. I have never taken an exam, and I have never practised only six pieces at a certain level and then moved on. More like 50 pieces at each level, probably more.
On the other hand, as I said, I am too slow in learning new pieces. I now practise early intermediate pieces, and if I would need to learn 40 pieces in a year, I could only practise easier pieces. I like to interleave practising pieces at my level with an occasional piece that is easier, just to focus on technique, but to only play easier pieces is not appealing to me, at all.
So however much I would like to participate, I have never and will never play 40 pieces per year.

BartK

The 40 piece challenge is a great idea that's misunderstood by most people. I had participated in it for some time in PW and I can say it really did help with my reading and ability to learn pieces quickly.

Here are some points of clarification:

You're supposed to pick pieces that are way easier than your normal level. You should be able to read through the whole piece and be able to work through all of it in one sitting. That doesn't mean you get it perfect in one sitting but it should be manageable to get through the entire piece and make progress on every part of it every practice session.
It's supposed to take only a small part of your study time. Pick something that is so easy (see point 1) that you can learn it in 1-2 weeks max working on it 10-15 minutes a day.
It's not supposed to be perfect. The aim is to get a fairly musical performance and not worry much about note accuracy but be able to play the piece without stopping and without hesitations. It's a bit like the aim of sight reading except you have a week to work on it.

I don't really like the name "40 Piece Challenge" because it obligates you to a certain number. I think 40 is quite achievable if you follow the guielines above but I prefer a name like "Quick Study Challenge". I call these pieces "quick studies" - i.e. pieces that you study and learn quickly to get a musical impression without perfecting the details.

Animisha

BartK Just remember the guidelines that I wrote in my post above.

Shouldn't we together agree on the guidelines instead of following your guidelines? Especially Nightowl, who started this thread. Now if they agree with changing to "Quick Study Challenge", then it is fine, but in the article that Nightowl quotes, nothing is said about quick studies that only take a small part of your study time.

BartK

Animisha Shouldn't we together agree on the guidelines instead of following your guidelines? Especially Nightowl, who started this thread. Now if they agree with changing to "Quick Study Challenge", then it is fine, but in the article that Nightowl quotes, nothing is said about quick studies that only take a small part of your study time.

You do whatever you want, of course. I was just pointing out what has worked for me after doing this challenge for several years and I feel strongly that this is the essence of the challenge.

I cannot emphasize enough how powerful this method is for improving your speed of learning new music. I'll gladly participate next year and share my experiences if other people are interested.

ShiroKuro

Ooh, thanks for starting this, @Nightowl ! I tried it when it first came up on PW many (many!) years ago. As I recall, I didn’t accomplish it, but I did approach it sort of the way @BartK is describing, as an addition to my regular pieces. And just moving through a lot of sheet music really helped my sightreading back then, I’m sure. I mean, I was (and am) always doing things to improve my sightreading, so it’s hard to say definitively, but I remember initially being really interested in it because the idea makes so much sense, if you want to be a strong reader you have to read a lot.

The kinds of pieces I regularly play are not suitable for this challenge (7 pages and more… 40 of those a year? Probably not!) But in the last few weeks, I’ve really been wanting to add back more consistent sightreading to my regular practice routine.

And as we approach the end of the year, I’m super curious how many new pieces I’ve worked on this year. As it happens, I keep a practice notebook that I write in, including what I worked on at each practice.

So one thing I’m going to do is go through that and see what I worked on this year. (And just count the number as well)

The other thing I’m going to do is go through my easier score collections and maybe make a list of pieces and then maybe my challenge will just be to see how many I can get through in 2025.

I don’t think I did it that way back when this challenge first came up at PW, in other words, I thought I would just sort of choose them as I went along.

But I think it might be more like to be successful by selecting the pieces at the outset and then having a pre-set “syllabus” to work through….

Hmm, lots of food for thought here! thanks @Nightowl 🙂

iternabe

ShiroKuro The kinds of pieces I regularly play are not suitable for this challenge (7 pages and more… 40 of those a year? Probably not!)

How about instead of pieces, we count pages? Maybe 80 pages a year?

WieWaldi

iternabe Well. Let me try to phrase it. Some pages have more emtpy space than others. 😉 Christian's sheet music is a good example, how to waste space. Sometimes there is an entire page with only one line, and sometimes one line contains only one bar, and somtimes one bar has only one chord.
40 pieces is as concept a classic. And if someone only mangages to achieve 20 or 10, it is okay. But if someone is in the ballpark of about 80 pieces, the 40-pieces-a-year-police issues a speeding ticket. 👮

ShiroKuro

iternabe How about instead of pieces, we count pages? Maybe 80 pages a year?

I think this is fine, depending on what one's goal is. When I first tried the 40-piece challenge, my goal was to expose myself to as much new music as possible. And that will be my goal again this time.

If this is the goal, then counting pages, and letting different pages from a long piece count towards that page-count goal, would be in my opinion, not well-aligned with the goal. Because in the same piece, there are lots of repeating patterns, same and/or similar themes etc.

So for me anyway, I think it would be preferable to continue working on my regular pieces as usual, and have a different set of (easier) pieces to use for the 40-piece challenge. And the goal with those pieces would be to move through as much music as possible. Whereas the goal with my regular pieces will be to polish them to a performance and/or recording level.

Ok, now that I've said all that, let me go and read the article @Nightowl linked, and see if my memory of the whole thing is accurate enough. 😅

WieWaldi if someone is in the ballpark of about 80 pieces, the 40-pieces-a-year-police issues a speeding ticket.

😆

iternabe

WieWaldi Well. Let me try to phrase it. Some pages have more emtpy space than others. 😉 Christian's sheet music is a good example, how to waste space. Sometimes there is an entire page with only one line, and sometimes one line contains only one bar, and somtimes one bar has only one chord.

Or, how about by time? Like, learn 60 minutes of music per year?

Nightowl

Gooseberry But I would like to make sure that we are free to define by ourselves what we consider as “a piece” and to what degree the piece should be “learned”.

Of course - tweak the concept in whatever way works best for you. 🙂 Be as fluid or rigid in how you define a piece, and how far you polish it, as you want to. Jot down the names of pieces as you complete them, or record every minutia of the process in a mega complex spreadsheet - whatever floats your boat! 😁

Sophia I can see where you're coming from, because you are already juggling many things at once, so might not have time to do this as well. Anyway, whatever you're doing is clearly working for you. 🙂 This is just my way to move forward, but if I find I'm floundering, there is always the option to buy A's book 3.

ShiroKuro

iternabe Or, how about by time? Like, learn 60 minutes of music per year?

Personally, I think it's fine for people to tweak the challenge to suit their interests, abilities and individual goals. So, in that regard, this would be fine. But if your goal is to learn a lot about music, to become better at learning new pieces, and to get better at reading (and read-playing) widely across piano literature, then I think tweaking it in this way misses the point.

Because the point, as I understand it, is that in order to learn a lot about music, to become better at learning new pieces, and to get better at reading (and read-playing) widely across piano literature .... to do all these and do them better, the recommendation is to learn a large number of discrete pieces, different pieces. Because it is that activity specifically, moving through a lot of music, a lot of individual pieces, that is the key.

So if you set the goal at 60 minutes, and then learned 4 15-minute pieces, this would not be aligned with that goal.

BartK

ShiroKuro Because the point, as I understand it, is that in order to learn a lot about music, to become better at learning new pieces, and to get better at reading (and read-playing) widely across piano literature .... to do all these and do them better, the recommendation is to learn a large number of discrete pieces, different pieces. Because it is that activity specifically, moving through a lot of music, a lot of individual pieces, that is the key.

Exactly. As much music as possible and as varied as possible - different composers, different styles, different moods, slow pieces, fast pieces, etc. The more variety the better.

ShiroKuro

BTW, in my day job, I'm an academic and in addition to the research that I do, I teach Japanese as a foreign language to undergrads and I teach graduate students about foreign language pedagogy.

A few years ago, the idea of "tadoku" got a lot of attention, and basically it means "read a lot." The idea was that Japanese language learners can benefit from reading a lot, and reading a lot more than most Japanese language teachers think they're capable of. Quantity over quality, and reading just below one's level.

The reasoning and the ideas behind tadoku are basically the same as those behind the 40-piece challenge.

Animisha

Of course, the forty pieces can be both our regular pieces that we polish until our teachers are satisfied, plus a number of easier pieces. In that way, the endeavour would be to play more pieces than we would do without this challenge.

Now we are all different in all possible ways except for being committed to the piano. So if one of us plans to learn 40 regular pieces, the other one plans to learn 40 easy pieces, the next person does 80 pages, I think all of this should be fine. As long as the challenge helps us to practise more pieces than we would without the challenge.

But, if you feel unsatisfied with the music that you make, if you feel that you would like to spend more time on each piece to polish it, and to work on technique, then this challenge is probably not for you! 😎

ShiroKuro

Animisha the endeavour would be to play more pieces than we would do without this challenge.

Yes, to me, this is at the heart of the challenge.

And I believe that the last time I tried to do it, although I'm pretty sure I didn't get to 40, I did get to more than I would have otherwise, and that's why it was beneficial.

So as a starting point, my goal will be to push up the number of pieces I learn. Once I get started, then I'll see how it goes and whether it makes sense for me to put a numerical goal on it or not, etc.

To me, this challenge meshes nicely with the goal of increasing and improving one's sightreading as well.