How to revive old repertoire

The first thing I noticed when I read through the piece was how satisfying it was that the music was still in my ear, and that large parts of it were still in my hands. The second thing I noticed was how the passages that gave me trouble when I’d last performed it still felt difficult. Once I decided that yes, I did want to relearn a piece that I’d not played since I first learned it in my 20s, I dug more deeply into those thorny sections, determined to get them more solidly in my hands than they’d been the last time I played the piece. That was when the ugly truth became visible: poor fingering choices, poor phrasing, inattention to where to release tension and where to push ahead—all of these landmines waited for me, and my practicing since then has been focused on the frustrating task of re-programming my muscle memory.

Ah, the joy of revisiting old repertoire. We get the glory of familiarity and the pain of facing any corners we may have cut when we first learned the piece. The road to redeeming those challenging passages isn’t easy, but it is attainable. All it takes is a commitment to making better choices, patience, and self-forgiveness when we inevitably go back to our old way of playing. I’ve been on this journey multiple times, and each return to the musical past has forced me to choose between keeping my old, unreliable choices or being very careful and deliberate in my practicing as I work to fix previous mistakes. Here are the tools I’ve used when relearning old pieces. Hopefully you’ll find them as effective as I have in your own practicing.

Relearn in sections

Regardless of how well I think I know a piece, I find new things in it every time I return to it. This is why I go back to the score and re-learn it the same way I learn new pieces—in sections. What I usually discover is that I don’t remember the piece as well as I thought I did. Careful, detailed practicing allows me to resist fudging my way through spots I don’t really know.

Start with trouble spots

We all know where these spots are, and when returning to an old piece I know from experience that it’s best to start my practicing with the passages that need the most work while my energy and enthusiasm is running high. Most days I practice these sections before I allow myself to play anything else in the piece. That way, when I do run through the music, I’m less inclined to revert to the previous way I played the notes.

Reexamine fingering choices

If I could go back in time, one of the things I’d tell my younger self is to learn everything with impeccable fingering, regardless of how slow and dull I may find that sort of practicing. Every single piano teacher I ever had told me this. Every. Single. One. But rather than listening to them, it took many painful crashes to get me to stop “playing and praying” I’d make it through sections and just train my fingers properly. Every time I’ve revived a piece from my youth, I’ve had to change fingering. It’s remarkable how much easier music is when your fingers know where to go each time you play a passage.

Double check notes and phrasing

Little errors creep in when you’ve had a piece in your memory for many years. Spending time practicing one hand at a time—even in passages I think I know well—always uncovers mistakes that need correcting. Most of the time, the errors lie in the left hand notes so now I know that’s where I’ll spend most of my practice time.

Phrasing is another area where I frequently find I need work. I was a bundle of nerves when I was in my 20s and it came out in the way I dug into the keys and wouldn’t let go when playing technical sections. When I return to old repertoire, part of my practicing requires me to consciously mark phrase endings in my score, and to physically lift my arms and release tension where needed. Not surprisingly, this has made the music much easier to play.

Reinforce muscle memory with solid practicing

All the hard-won changes and improvements are for naught if I don’t drill them into my fingers. Old fashioned, daily repetition is the only way I know to get the hands and the brain to automatically play a passage the new way, not the old. I have to watch that I don’t try to play everything too fast immediately as doing so encourages my hands to go back to old habits. This sort of practicing always takes longer than I think it will, but with enough work and patience, it’s eventually effective and reliable.

The glory that waits on the other side of resurrecting an old piece through careful, detailed practicing can’t be overstated. The music comes back deeper, becomes easier, and it is burnished with the depth of the intervening years of living and loving. When it’s a piece we’ve loved for decades, it comes straight from our musical DNA, full of all the richness of the memories that live in the notes and everything we’ve now become. It becomes, essentially, timeless.

Photo by Lorenzo Spoleti, courtesy of UpSplash