December 16, 2025: Tuesday Upbeat

Teachers: Happy Tuesday

Developing a Repertoire of Music (and NOT “Passing Pieces”)

The goal is to have students learn and memorize a repertoire of music. 

This means that you consistently add learned pieces of music to each student’s developing repertoire, and have them keep playing the learned pieces for long periods of time. (Drop pieces only when the student’s repertoire becomes too large or they’ve played something so much they’ve grown tired of it. Some pieces might be played for years or even a lifetime.)

Depending on length and complexity, students should always have 3 to 10 songs and pieces they can play anytime, anywhere, for anyone.

Do not “pass pieces.” This practice goes against our studio policies and our best practice teaching philosophy and strategies. Passing pieces generally means having a student learn a piece to some “satisfactory” degree,  checking it off as complete, and then dropping it to move on to a new piece. This practice has the following negative effects:

1. Students tend to barely learn music rather than learn it thoroughly. Music is by definition shallow and not deep.

2. Students do not improve their capacity to memorize music and retain memorized music for long periods of time.

3. Students do not have the opportunity to practice playing more and more fluently.

4. Students are perpetually between pieces – having forgotten the old one and not quite learned the new one, they never have anything they can play with confidence on the spot.

5. Music learning becomes tedious, with both the teacher and student striving to get pieces learned well enough to pass them and move on. Negative messages are persistently sent to and reinforced in the student, trivializing music learning and music making.

The practice of passing pieces is not permitted at our music studio. Instead:

Develop a repertoire of music. Help students have several songs and pieces always ready to perform for family and friends, and to play at Forum and in recitals. Perform the same (always slowly evolving) repertoire many times, including for more than one recital. Remind students (and parents) that professional musicians perform the same music hundreds of times, and sometimes thousands of times over a lifetime. Allow music to become easy, which helps students gain confidence in performing, and also in that they are making good progress in learning and developing their musical skills.

Always remember: music performance should feel easy.

Stickers & Prize Tickets

Stickers should be given not when pieces are “passed” (we don’t do that), but when pieces are memorized. The purpose of the stickers and prize tickets is to add a little fun and encouragement to students for memorizing their music. Give them a sticker and a prize ticket when they play something from memory for the first time. But then don’t stop playing it! Keep playing it every week, and add it to their developing repertoire of memorized music that they can play anytime, anywhere, for anyone.

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Have a magical Tuesday, a musical week, and enjoy happy, healthy and tension-free teaching and learning with your students.

Thank you,

Dennis Frayne

"Dr. Dennis"
Laguna Niguel School of Music
Dennis Frayne Music Studios
30110 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suites 105/107/108
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
(949) 844-9051 (office cell)
(949) 468-8040 (personal cell)

www.lagunaniguelschoolofmusic.com

dfrayne@dennisfrayne.com

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