When you play a song you love, you’re locating and expressing deep internal feelings. By simply looking for and choosing songs you love, you are actually engaged in a journey of self-discovery.  This is all part of the process of developing Emotional Intelligence.  Now isn’t that exciting?

As a music teacher my experience is that students tend to abandon exam pieces just as soon as the exam is over. However when they find a piece that touches their heart, they embrace it and delve into learning and practising it. What a gift!

Here are just some reasons why I encourage my students to learn pieces they absolutely love.

• The student ends up listening to more music in the search for pieces to play – thereby developing their own particular taste and expanding their knowledge of repertoire.
• If the student loves the piece, they will know it inside out before they begin to learn it on piano, therefore speeding up the task of learning it.
• They will be more motivated and excited about piano practice as the practice sessions will be more successful and will produce better results.
• The student will develop technical skills at a faster pace because the motivation will be there to take on pieces that are a bit more challenging.
• Performing the piece for family and friends will become part of life because when you love something, you like to share it – thereby developing performance skills, which in turn has a hugely positive effect on self confidence.
• Best of all, these chosen pieces will end up as part of the students long term repertoire - they will enjoy playing them for many years.