I tend to play pieces - get them to a good standard and then they just go away never to see the light of day again, so when I do come back to them - they are never as nice as when I stopped playing them before. I'd like to build a repertoire of pieces but seem to spend all my time on learning new ones.

Can anyone suggest a way to practise that makes the most of my time - including technical exercises / scales / new pieces / old pieces etc. I have around 1 hour 30 mins everyday to play, though I normally do it in 20 minute sessions as I start to lose concentration after about 30 minutes.

Thank you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'm the same and have pretty much always been like that on piano beyond about grade 2/3 level...though I was unaware of grade levels for most of my earlier learning.
I'm much more able to maintain or reincarnate pieces on clarinet. I don't know if it's the instrument or if I've just been bashing away at the 'wrong' instrument for the last 40 years.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

I'm exactly the same on clarinet as I am on piano lol! I know a lot of my problem is not having a structured practise session but I don't know where to begin in getting one?!

Half of the problem is I buy ALOT of new music and want to PLAY IT ALL - NOW! So, I end up ploughing away at new stuff constantly, never quite getting it to the level I want to get it to... I know that (especially for piano) I should not buy ANY new music for a VERY long time .... but I just hear something / see something in the shop and thats it - it's in the trolley. Then it's hmmm wonder if I can have a go at sightreading it ... whoops practise session completely gone on messing about AGAIN!

I think that the main thing is that I need so much time and effort to progress with whatever I'm learning in the present that maintaining anything the least bit challenging just doesn't get space. I'd have to spend less time and effort on new stuff and take much longer to learn things.
I don't really spend time on maintaining clarinet repertoire but find it much easier to resurrect stuff and to learn new pieces which are a couple of grades below my current level. I'd take much longer to learn/relearn in a similar way on piano despite many more years learning.

For me, it boils down to putting in sustained effort on a piece. That usually means at least an hour on *that piece alone*, at least three times a week. If I do this and I keep it up for a few months, then that piece seems to go into long-term storage and I can dust it off and get it to performance level reasonably quickly. Even better if I memorise it because then I really can play it any time I need to.

So how many pieces do I have at this level? Two (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif) Not really what I would call a great repertoire, but I suppose everybody has to start somewhere....

Don't you find that the pieces are easier to learn the second time though? There's basically no repertoire I constantly keep at performance standard, but I'm pretty confident in my ability to relearn things given, say, a week or so. It may vary depending on how much work I put into the piece previously, but pretty quickly pieces sound much better than they used to. I failed DipABRSM the first time because I simply didn't practice enough given the time constraints (I had about 5 months), and some of the more technically difficult sections simply weren't solid enough. I didn't play at all for a few months because I didn't have access to a piano, even though I was planning to retake with almost the same program in the next session. But within a week of going back to them the sections I had made a mess of technically were miraculously more secure than they had been, and everything I had learned well came back without a struggle. I suppose for a performer, being able to bring things back within a week isn't nearly fast enough, but unless that's what you're going for...

No.

Interesting, I've always taken it for granted. Maybe it depends on how long ago you left the piece.

Maybe you need to start by thinking which particular piece/maybe 2 pieces you would like to improve significantly. Write it down.

Then, taking each piece, write what particularly needs to improve, and set yourself a goal of improving those aspects within a week. I think you need short-term goals. You may need to adjust timings and goals to your own practice regime. You must regard practice sessions as "work time" and then you can reward yourself with a 15 minute 'fiddle about' with anything you fancy as it won't be "work time".

Just a suggestion. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Yes - MUCH MUCH easier. Not just the notes, but also the mechanics of playing the piece.

Edit - to clarify how much "much much easier" is - it normally takes me months to learn a piece properly, and the second time around it takes a couple of weeks at most.

I used to do that, but now I have a firm rule that I have to practise the things I'm working on, and if I mess about with sight-reading and stuff it does not count and I in fact didn't practise at all. I start to feel embarassed by the number of missed days quite quickly. When I'm really burning to try a new piece I set myself a deal of how much needs to be acheived on my set pieces before I can fiddle, and the fiddling is my reward for a job well done. I limit my number of set pieces and pack away the stuff I'm not working on so it isn't right there on the music stand/piano crying out to be played. That has seen a huge improvement in my playing lately!

I understand that my type of practice won't be suited to everyone but I try to organise as follows:

30 minutes of Pischna daily exercises
30 minutes of Hanon studies
30 minutes of learning various etudes/studies
40 minutes of learning new pieces
20 minutes of running through pieces in repertoire

(I often don't do it all in one go, however!)

Anything which I do on top of the above practice schedule is a bonus! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I would practise for longer each day if I didn't have a full time summer job (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

Corenfa - This is the same for me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Others - Thank you so much for the advice (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I'm going to put some of my music away and dig other old pieces out to get back up to standard and see what happens. Also going to write a practise schedule like what I do for my pupils e.g. 5 mins aural, 15 mins polishing a piece I've played before, 30 mins learning new piece and what I want to do (bars x - x or hands separately etc.)

Perhaps...though it has to be said that a 16 year break from playing anything didn't do any harm when it came to resurrecting one of my G4 pieces. That may have been a special case, as for those 16 years I'd had a random bit of music in my head that I had no idea of the identity of, which when I bought a secondhand copy of my old G4 pieces, turned out to be one of them! Actually I think the same happened when I stumbled over one of my old G2 pieces, which more recently cropped up as a short movement from something else - or maybe that's just down to no longer being a G2 level player. I just had completely security in knowing the upcoming pitch and rhythm and hearing it in my head still.

I think a lot depends on the relationship you had with a piece. I picked up my grade pieces really easily because I'd hammered them out for a million concerts and festivals and presented them in an exam, by the time I left behind my grade 8 pieces I could have played them in my sleep.

Then again, I shall tell you a funny story that I have been dying for a reason to share. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
Last night while I was messing around with my old Aulos descants, my husband announced that he had one of those too, and headed upstairs to get it. I wasn't sure if he could play anything but with a little persuasion he decided to have a crack at Amazing Grace, as apparently he played it so much his parents wanted to murder him. Once he picked up the recorder it just happened, even though he can't have played a note on a recorder in 30 years. The second time he played it through I automatically joined in with the treble part, again faultlessly and entirely from memory, which I last played in what would now be year 4. Some things just stick with you!