New Year, New Approach - 40 Pieces Challenge 2025
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. 
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 
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.
WieWaldi Well. Let me try to phrase it. Some pages have more emtpy space than others.
Or, how about by time? Like, learn 60 minutes of music per year?
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?
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.
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.
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! 
*
... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
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.
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.
This project needs a name 
PACT is already taken, but what about 40 Pieces of Silver? 40P Club? Piano Forte?
Oooh I hope not, because that would basically mean I'd be FORCED to join! 
I'm in. Even though my main focus is pieces at my grade level, I like to always have a quick study to going. They are my only hope to play my way through all the piano music I've acquired over the years. I'm almost out of grade 1 pieces but have around 25 books with one or more grade 2 pieces.
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.
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
We can then be a "motley crewe." ARRRR, matey.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.
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)