New Year, New Approach - 40 Pieces Challenge 2025
iternabe I can only manage practicing 1 scale, learn 1 piece, and polish 1 piece in the same day.
That sounds very good!
As for me, how much I work on in a practice session depends on how much time I have, and what I have coming up. For example, when I was preparing for the recital or the concert, that determined my practice sessions, which were tightly focused on the recital pieces of course, and didn’t include new material.
But in general, in a regular practice session, I work on 1-2 pieces that are still in the early learning stage, then I have maybe 2-3 in the polishing stage, and then there are always multiple pieces I want to play for maintenance, so I rotate through those. If I don’t have much time, I just practice the learning pieces. When I have a lot of time, I go through all the pieces, taking one or two breaks (getting up from the piano, stretching my legs, getting something to drink…)
But I have been playing piano a long time, so I feel more comfortable working on a lot of things at once (or in one practice session).
I had my last lesson for the year (sniff). And I told my teacher about the 40 piece challenge. He thought it was a great idea!
That lead to a discussion of sight reading, which was also interesting.
But he strongly agreed with the goal of reading more, playing more, and having pieces for the 40P challenge be below the current playing level.
Pallas Are you going to pick pieces you can knock off in a few days, or try for one per week?
I didn't have any of my books with me that I intend to use for the 40P pieces, so we were sort of speaking hypothetically, but I think I will aim for 1-2 weeks per piece. Ideally less than two weeks for any given pieces, and some would be less than a week. Some I'll play for my teacher, some not.
BTW he's actually trying to rearrange some of his students so we can have an hour lesson instead of our current 45 minutes. Fingers crossed!
My next lesson is all the way in January.
Me too, the week of Jan. 6th.
@Pallas thank you! That extra 15 minutes would make a huge difference! Including for the 40P challenge.
Which brings up the question of deciding when to move on from a piece, which I know comes up here a lot. We sort of talked about this at my lesson, but one thing he agreed with was that the benefit is from reading and playing widely so I don't need to truly polish every piece.
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Presently I am working with pieces that I can play at the lowest given tempo, without mistakes and with correct dynamics within three days. I am working with a method book (Schaum), so soon enough the pieces will need a bit more time. But it feels very good to start this challenge with pieces that are a bit too easy.
When the pieces get more difficult, I may increase to four or five days, and to play them at a bit slower tempo.
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... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
Pallas There's a benefit to polishing pieces and also a benefit to quantity and not polishing everything
Exactly!! And there’s no reason to approach every piece the same way, and i think having some pieces that you just move through rather quickly is going to be part of the key to getting your fingers into a much larger number of pieces.
Animisha But it feels very good to start this challenge with pieces that are a bit too easy.
When the pieces get more difficult, I may increase to four or five days, and to play them at a bit slower tempo.
This also sounds like a very good approach!
Animisha Presently I am working with pieces that I can play at the lowest given tempo, without mistakes and with correct dynamics within three days. I am working with a method book (Schaum), so soon enough the pieces will need a bit more time. But it feels very good to start this challenge with pieces that are a bit too easy.
When the pieces get more difficult, I may increase to four or five days, and to play them at a bit slower tempo.
I suppose if you have 2 or 3 of such pieces going concurrently but interleaved at different stages, like a production line, your average “days between completed pieces” will be quite shorter than each individual one takes?
iternabe I suppose if you have 2 or 3 of such pieces going concurrently but interleaved at different stages, like a production line, your average “days between completed pieces” will be quite shorter than each individual one takes?
On a serious note, this is quite possible but of course you have to consider how much load you can tolerate. If each piece adds 20 mins of practice time you may quickly end up overwhelmed. But if you have lots of time and/or the pieces are easy enough that they don't require a lot of practice time then why not?
As I previously said, the target of 40 pieces equates to learning/playing one piece every 9 days. You could just choose a single piece to play for 10 or 20 mins each day, then move onto the second piece on day 10, and so on. Or you could add a new piece every 3 or 4 days, until you are working on 3 pieces every day, then each time you finish a piece you could start another, so that you constantly have 3 pieces which are in different stages of progress. This way you might find that for the first week or so you don't finish any pieces, but then you could find yourself completing a piece roughly every 3 days. It depends how much time you want to spend on this challenge. I think if the pieces are easy enough and you don't feel the need to polish them to perfection, this would be very doable, unless you are also working on complex stretch pieces for exams/recitals, in which case you might not want to commit extra practice time to this challenge.
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
BartK iternabe I suppose if you have 2 or 3 of such pieces going concurrently but interleaved at different stages, like a production line, your average “days between completed pieces” will be quite shorter than each individual one takes?
On a serious note, this is quite possible but of course you have to consider how much load you can tolerate. If each piece adds 20 mins of practice time you may quickly end up overwhelmed. But if you have lots of time and/or the pieces are easy enough that they don't require a lot of practice time then why not?
Thank you for your concern Bart!
During the morning, I practise the pieces that I am working with. But in the evening, if I am not too tired to practise, I can do whatever I like. And it is during the evening when I do my quick studies. It is very relaxed, the pieces are easy. I work on each piece for maybe ten minutes, and then I move on. So far, every piece was finished in three days. But soon the pieces will be a bit more challenging. 
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... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
@Animisha I am so jealous! I would love to be able to have two practice sessions per day, one in the morning and one in the evening. As long as I’m working though, that seems pretty hard to implement….
Although, I wonder if I could do it on weekends… hmmm interesting, I bet doing that even just twice a week would have a very positive impact. Then the question would be, how to design the sessions when I’m planning to do two…
The other question would be, (since I don’t have a digital) how much would it drive my husband crazy? 
In 25 years, he has never once complained about my piano practice (angel that he is) …. Fortunately, he has a studio in our new home, and when the door is closed there he can hardly hear me playing, or not at all if he’s doing something that makes even the slightest sound himself.
Maybe I can try the two sessions during winter break and see how it goes.
I love this forum! I would have never thought of doing two sessions per day because I would have never thought it was possible, but now, in the space of five minutes, I went from thinking it impossible, to thinking of it as only something I could do post-retirement, to thinking that, no, I could actually probably make it work right now, even if not daily.
The power of suggestion 
I'm going to visit family for Christmas but after I come back I was planing to do more practicing for a few days as I'm on vacation. I hope it's not cheating if I start my first challenge piece a few days before New Year and count all the pieces I finish in 2025.
Animisha Good point Ani! 
Anyway BartK as you're a moderator you can just have a firm word with yourself about breaking the rules, then assure yourself that it won't happen again and let yourself off for a first offence! 
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
Oh!! I have actually a folder with pieces that are too easy! Those pieces that I discovered too late, and I was sorry not to have played them when I still was more of a beginner. I can make them into quick studies and play them.
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... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
Animisha awesome!
I love this btw, bc I doubt very. Many of us have a folder of “too easy” pieces. I don’t, although I have several books that I’ve bought over the years with the idea of using them for sightreading. Many of those were too hard when I first got them, but now some of them seem like they will be the right level.
