25 Piece Challenge
The new "25 Piece Challenge" is now on and will run until 30 June 2024. Make 2023/2024 your best music period ever by learning and finding that motivation to learn to practise effectively.
If you would like to participate, speak to your child's teacher about it. Here is the form.
By building a repertoire rich learning program, you develop great sight reading skills which would allow you to explore and learn more music!
The pieces that go on the list would make a trove of concert pieces too!
Some tips to get to 25 Pieces!
- If you weren’t allowed to look at the picture, it would be much harder to do the puzzle and probably not as fun. In the same way, trying to learn a piece without having heard it and without knowing whether you even like it makes it much harder to learn. This is why it is so important for students to listen a lot to the piece(s) they are learning. The more familiar the piece, the easier and more satisfying it is to work towards that big picture. Your teacher would be able to point you to a good reliable video or audio recording from the main music streaming platforms such as Spotify or AppleMusic and Youtube. I am really glad to be living in this wonderful age of digital technology where music of virtually all genres are at your fingertips.
- Learning an easier arrangement of a piece is a wonderful way to play classical standards, contemporary, rock/pop jazz & blues, country, movies, tv shows/video games, musicals & Broadway. Making the learning achievable and in a shorter time works magic and enhances motivation all round.
- Learning a duet piece or an ensemble piece is another tip.
- Your teacher can help you select pieces that can be learnt within 1-2 weeks ("quick learn" ones) which can almost double up as sight reading material which you may continue to polishing phase. Discuss with your child's teacher what would be the appropriate repertoire under the "Quick learn ones" and the "medium" (3-6 weeks) to "longer" term (7 to 10 weeks) pieces your child could explore.
What is the reward upon achieving this Challenge? A smart looking trophy that is similar to the ones that have been awarded to our two students below! Both Oliver and Kaitlyn have learnt over 20 pieces from term 4 last year to late May this year! They have also won the trophy twice in a row (2021/2022 and 2022/2023).