My Quick Study Projects

I recently wrote a blog post about one of my main piano goals for 2021 which is to broaden my active repertoire. In a subsequent article and video, I identified a common barrier which amateur pianists often encounter in doing this: our tendency to choose pieces that are too difficult in relation to our ability, available time to practise or both.

Photo by Jordan Benton from Pexels

Using Quick Studies

One of the tools I will be using to combat this issue and to help me achieve my goal is quick studies. Quick studies are an often overlooked, but incredibly beneficial way to increase your repertoire while developing the skills required to new learn pieces faster.

The concept behind a quick study is very simple — basically you reduce the amount of time you have to learn a piece e.g. often one or two weeks. The objective is to do this without compromising significantly on the quality of the musical result. This forces you to be less ambitious in the selection of the piece given that time constraints have already introduced a level of challenge.

Why do quick studies?

In addition to the obvious benefit of rapidly increasing your repertoire, quick studies offer a number of further benefits:

• Limiting the time you have in which to learn a piece focusses the mind and can help you to be more efficient and disciplined when you practise.
• This in turn helps you to develop skills and reinforce good habits that improve your ability to learn pieces faster in future.
• Being exposed to a wider range of pieces and music means that you will be exposed to more styles and techniques that in turn aid your overall development as a musician.
• Having more pieces that you can play and a wider repertoire opens up more opportunities to perform or to share your music with others which in turn can yield many further benefits!

My projects & approach

I’m going to be embarking upon a series of quick study projects alongside some of my longer-term repertoire. The following is a summary of how I intend approaching them:

• I’ll be aiming to learn each piece within approximately two weeks.
• The level of difficulty and length of each of these pieces should be such that I could reasonably expect to learn them in this timeframe e.g. roughly 2–4 pages at approx. grade 6–8 level.
• To achieve this without substantially increasing my practice time, I will be using several practice strategies and techniques to try and learn the pieces as efficiently as possible.
• I’ll emphasise consistency over duration with my practising, using short “micro-practice” sessions focussing on specific areas when my time is limited.
• To enhance my focus, each project will be broken down into milestones of gradually increasing intensity e.g. recording for myself, playing at lessons and in some instances performing for others.

My first project will feature Chopin’s C-sharp Minor (Op. Posth.) Nocturne. It’s a piece I’ve always wanted to play, but haven’t ever gotten around to doing so for various reasons. Therefore this is the perfect opportunity to learn it!

I’ll be sharing my journey and what I learn along the way on my website and YouTube channel. You can also sign-up here to receive updates on my projects by email.