I was really into Alvin and the Chipmunks as a little kid. I enjoyed their high-pitched voices, and particularly liked their singing voices. The Christmas song was a favorite. 😂
So when my mom tried to get me to take voice lessons (figuring it’d be good for my overall musical development), I agreed, because I thought I’d learn how to sing like the chipmunks did. I had visions of performing the Christmas song, and remember being pretty psyched about it all.
Needless to say, voice lessons didn’t last very long once I discovered that my voice teacher didn’t exactly share my vocal goals, and I wouldn’t be singing any chipmunk songs. I just couldn’t muster up the motivation to work on the things she wanted me to work on.
It’s probably just as well that I didn’t devote lots of time to emulating Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. But the bigger question here is about choice, and how this could affect a student’s learning and engagement.
For instance, when choosing repertoire, should students be able to choose their own? How much of a difference could it really make if they do? (spoiler alert: it could make a huge difference – and not in the way you’re probably thinking)
A study!
As part of a 3-year study on musical development, Australian researchers (Renwick & McPherson, 2002) followed the practice habits of 157 elementary school-aged students, a small number of which also agreed to videotape some of their practice sessions over the course of the study.
Researchers then meticulously coded and analyzed every practice behavior (a painfully laborious process from the sounds of it, as a 10-minute clip of practicing can take up to 5 hours to code).
Introducing Clarissa
One of the participants, known as “Clarissa,” became the subject of a case study. This 9 1/2-year old clarinetist who previously studied Suzuki violin for 4 years, picked up the instrument because her best friend played it and “The clarinet teacher looked nice”.
The researchers analyzed two practice sessions in her first year of playing (in months 4 and 5 of her clarinet studies), and two practice sessions from her third year of playing (in month 32 of her studies).
Clarissa’s attitude towards practicing
Clarissa was a pretty middle-of-the-road student, in that she wasn’t extremely motivated or driven to practice. But she also wasn’t particularly unmotivated, and generally did ok once she got started.
For instance, when interviewed in Year 1, she expressed a clear preference for avoiding challenges in favor of playing through familiar pieces she liked:
“I don’t like learning hard pieces because I find it annoying.”
Also, according to her mother, she didn’t need much prompting to practice, but also wasn’t particularly thoughtful or mindful when practicing:
“She is not really a perfectionist but a little bit of a dreamer so she will sometimes just go through her pieces and not really pay any attention to what she is doing, though generally she is fairly good…”
Three years later…
Over the course of the three years, Clarissa’s thoughts around practice did evolve a bit, and she began to recognize the benefit of practicing smaller sections rather than simply playing through a piece:
“I normally play the piece all the way through and then come back to the bits that are bad…I practice one segment at a time.”
She also seemed to embrace more difficult repertoire by Year 3, noting that she liked learning hard pieces because:
“It makes the pieces a challenge.”
However, when comparing Clarissa’s actual practice behaviors between Year 1 with Year 3, not much had changed. 😅
Almost all of her “practice” still consisted of simply playing through her assigned pieces once, and then moving on to the next – except when it came to one particular piece.
A piece that she had selected herself.
From practice novice…
In this particular practice session, Clarissa worked on some scales and band pieces, three classical pieces her teacher gave her (one of which was “La Cinquantaine” by Gabriel-Marie), and lastly, a piece she had asked her teacher if she could play – Woody Herman’s Golden Wedding (which is essentially a more “jazzy” version of La Cinquantaine).
It looked like a pretty typical practice session up until Clarissa began working on her selected piece. And that’s when things changed.
…to practice pro
For one, she spent more time working on the piece she selected than any of the pieces her teacher assigned. About eleven times longer, in fact. Specifically, she spent an average of 9.83 seconds per note vs. the .9 seconds per note she averaged on the assigned pieces.
But what’s far more interesting, is that there was a dramatic change in how she practiced this piece relative to the others.
When practicing the teacher-assigned pieces, Clarissa practiced like a novice, essentially just playing through everything like she did as a beginner.
But when she got to her chosen piece, she suddenly began utilizing more advanced practice and learning strategies. Strategies that are typically associated with higher-level players, like:
- fingering silently (7% of her practice time on the self-selected piece vs. 2% when working on teacher-assigned rep)
- pausing to think silently (14% vs. 1%)
- singing (6% vs. 0%)
- varying tempo (This was the only time she ever varied the tempo in practice, among all the taped practice sessions)
- repeated run-throughs (This was the only piece Clarissa played through more than once. In fact, she returned to this piece after working on other repertoire, and played it through two more times!)
So what can we take away from all of this?
Takeaways
On one hand, yes, this is just a case study of one student. But the most fascinating part of the study for me is how Clarissa was evidently a more capable, more thoughtful, and more savvy practicer than she appeared to be. These skills and capabilities just seemed to awaken when she came across a piece or set of problems that she cared more to solve. Where not only did she suddenly appear willing to put in the time, but she began working to use that time in the most effective way too.
Of course, a student can’t pick out all of their own repertoire all the time. But perhaps a balance of teacher and student-selected repertoire could help to maximize motivation and encourage students to actually use their hidden practice skills, while still allowing for some structure and exposure to standard rep?
We’re better performers too?
In much the same way that might be better practicers than we know, I really believe that most of us are more effective performers than we realize too.
Of course, if we’ve had negative experiences performing in the past, it’s easy to doubt ourselves and question whether we have the ability to perform effective in front of an audience. But as I once discovered myself, and many other musicians have also discovered over the years, performance psychology offers many helpful tools and techniques that can change our relationship with performing, and enable us to experience performing as more of a thrill than a terror (a turn of phrase that I know sounds very ChatGPT-y, but I swear isn’t 😅).
Anyhow, if you’d like to learn the essential skills that over 2000 learners have used to perform more consistently like themselves – from professional musicians and educators to students ranging from age 10 to 80+ – check out the upcoming Performance Psych Essentials class that begins July 22nd, 2025.
You’ll learn evidence-based practice strategies that have been found to facilitate faster learning and greater on-stage confidence, plus strategies for managing nerves and getting into flow states more consistently, all alongside a global cohort of supportive and curious learners.
Join Cohort 24 today: Performance Psych Essentials
Additional reading
To check out all of the nerdy details in the Renwick & McPherson study, download it here: Case study of a novice’s clarinet practice
References
Renwick, J. M., & McPherson, G. E. (2002). Interest and choice: student-selected repertoire and its effect on practising behaviour. British Journal of Music Education, 19(02). https://doi.org/10.1017/s0265051702000256
[…] via What Changes When a Student Selects Their Own Repertoire? A Case Study. […]
When it comes to picking a contest solo, I have always picked three pieces I’d be comfortable with a student learning. I want her/him to be challenged but not overwhelmed. I have the student read parts of each piece, listen to a performance on YouTube and then decide which to learn. I believe I see a better work ethic when they’ve helped choose. I’ve even had students who came from elsewhere comment that they think it’s ‘cool’ that they get to choose.
I do a very similar thing, Anna! I always give my voice students a choice of about 3 pieces, all of which I feel would benefit them technically and musically, and then they get to choose. And if they don’t like any of them? Back to the drawing board we go. I agree that it helps their work ethic so much, and it keeps them coming back year after year. I even notice the same thing in myself. When I choose my own recital rep versus what I’m asked to sing I end up more motivated and more excited to take it to that next level. Here’s to taking ownership of learning!
I completely agree with the concept of this study. I began learning how to play music on the saxophone in a very academic manner, and I’m forever grateful in how this created a foundation of knowledge that helped me grow as a musician and understand the hard work and discipline that is required to grow. HOWEVER, it wasn’t until I started taking bass lessons from a guitar teacher that encouraged me to choose my own repertoire and taught me pentatonic scales through music that I had a personal connection that I felt like I could self-discover and create my own voice in music. This dramatically changed how I approached music and the vigor and passion that I brought to practicing and performing grew exponentially. This was my journey, and now as a practicing music therapist and performer always encourage budding musicians to create their own path. Learn and play music you love to get hooked and cultivate your passion, and learn the theory, technique, and academic aspects to develop the discipline.
In the piano world, this is called a “hook” piece. One of the most notorious is Fuer Elise, of course, whether in an easy version or in the “real” version. Most of us do what we can to feed in pieces that students like. However, I always remember the words of my public school choral teacher, “If you only work on pieces you already know, you will never learn anything new.” There are also technical challenges to keep in mind when it isn’t feasible to water down a chosen piece. Sometimes that can be a motivator – if you practice more, you will have the skills to learn _____. Keeping another thought in mind, this one from my college piano prof: “Every lesson is a session in psychology.” Some students try to work their psychology on the teacher by ignoring assigned pieces while working only half-heartedly on their own choices. Others will make large strides when given a hook piece that is a little beyond them, whether it is pop or classical. Consider the student, and balance the options.
One more thought: those of us who have done a lot of collaborative playing would have loved to ditch pieces we didn’t like. 🙂
‘Hook piece’ is a very appropriate name and I find them everywhere in piano playing. I have the distinct feeling that Beethoven’s Hammerklavier is my hook piece at the moment! ..which is not very great since it’ll be ages before it’ll be within my reach. I find it oddly motivating to listen to music that is significantly more difficult than what I’m playing today. It gives me goals to work for and perspective on my music as well.
I guess this shouldn’t really come as a surprise, people like what they like. 🙂
When kids are taught to read, they usually have a bunch of “readers” at their level to pick from, based on the pictures usually, but for music the poor darlings have to make their way through the method, piece by piece.
Once they’re through the first, say, three method books, they should be able to have some input into their repertoire. Spotify could act as the box of readers. Most kids in this country adhere in some fashion or other to the AMEB syllabus. Recordngs of almost everything on the syllabus is available on Spotify.
Elissa Milne, piano teacher, composer and blogger says that kids should have no input into their repertoire until they are 12, because they will choose pieces based on something as spurious as the pictures that go with it, but after 15 when they are forming their own identity, they should have almost complete input into their repertoire, with the teacher acting as a guide.
https://elissamilne.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/six-rules-about-repertoire/
My daughter is anxiously waiting for the day when she can start choosing her own pieces. At the moment though, she prefers the ones with pictures. 🙂
Couldn’t agree more with this article. As a teacher I’m wary of even taking on a student if he or she doesn’t have song requests. Song requests show that the student is actively listening to music and is impacted by music the way a real musician is impacted (whether it’s chipmunks themed or not). I don’t care what they want to learn, just as long as they’re thinking about what it would be like to play some of their favorite songs. If they demonstrate a desire to learn the song, I am more than happy to write out the song. And once they get that experience of playing through a song they’ve always loved, they’re hooked for life and much more willing to learn the things they need to know over future lessons 🙂
Fascinating! It is logical to assume that a student would practice a piece they like more, but it never occurred to me that they would also practice better! You mentioned that the piece she selected was more “jazzy”, which leads me to wonder if the selection of musical styles amongst teachers, especially with young students, is too limited. Many schools and teachers seem to focus on classical music, with the occasional concession to pop. Yet there may be many students out there attracted to other styles and genres without even knowing it. It would be wonderful to hear your thoughts on how musical exploration can create more positive practice and performance habits.
To be fair, we are talking of a case study, as you admitted, and I dont find the percentage differences that convincing….
I guess I am odd, but one of the main reasons I changed teachers was because he kept asking me what I wanted to play, irritating me on a regular basis with a choice of pieces (none of which I knew, so based on what grounds was I meant to make a decision??) and expecting me to choose one. I hated it.
I now have a teacher who chooses what we do based on what he, as my teacher, reckons I need to progress. He would never say no if I showed up with a piece I want to play (which I ususlly dont). He always asks if I am ok with the piece he chose. But he chooses.
I have learnt over time that generally teachers are better than me at choosing pieces. They know the literature, they can gauge if a piece is fun or dull, too hard or too easy for me, or the educational benefit of a piece. After all, that is what they are trained to do.
So please: Dont ask me what I want to play. I am usually happy with whatever it is, and even if I dont like the piece I can usually pull something worth my while out of it. 😀
Good article and I totally agree with allowing students to choose music. I recently did an activity with my 8th grade band where my students got to choose one of their concert pieces. The buy-in was HUGE for the kids and their progress on the music has been very rapid.
Blogpost: http://www.teachingbandandmore.com/2015/01/rehearsal-activity-giving-students.html