Dropping Songs off the Playlist
Found in: Practicing & Playlists
Lyndel K., Western Australia
I am wishing to discuss whether or not teachers begin to drop songs from the playlist when it has begun to get over 40 songs. As I have not gone past the Reading Program (rhythm and notes ) I’m not sure which songs are really important and which have served their purpose. There seems to be some fairly simple songs which I figure could go but I don’t want to thwart anyone’s progress by making decisions based on incomplete information.
Gordon Harvey, Australia
I find students are still looking back over earlier songs as part of the reading process well into the 40’s and 50’s. By this stage, of course, they’re so familiar with the need to maintain the Play List that there’s rarely any pressure to drop songs. Also, by that stage the earlier songs are so familiar that they require very little attention to be kept in shape.
I’ve noted that one Play List page holds 31 songs, so 60 songs would comfortably occupy a two page spread. 60 is a nice round number, and students seem to appreciate this milestone, so I usually allow them to drop off songs when they reach this point.
What would you drop? I’d say songs which have been developed into Arrangements (Dreams Come True, Night Storm etc – but keep the arrangements), blues songs which have served their function or clearly been elaborated on (Jackson and Bishop, maybe Walking with Billy), the occasional song students don’t like as much as others (Chester and Dog are common victims there), and maybe the earliest accompaniments. Obviously, start from the earliest pieces. Once they’ve started the full Fur Elise, there hardly seems need to keep up the old one.
I have some students who use Playlist numbers as a motivator, and if they want to keep building their numbers, that’s fine with me, so long as they’re not taking so much time maintaining old songs that they’re running out of time for new material.