How To Build and Maintain a Repertoire to Keep Your Songs Fresh and Ready to Play
- Diana Mascari
- Apr 7
- 11 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Some questions that you may be asking include:
What does the word repertoire mean?
How does a repertoire of classical pieces differ from one made up of songs?
How do I go about creating a repertoire?A repertoire may evolve over time as new works are added and older ones are polished or retired.
Is it necessary to memorize your repertoire?
What does the phrase "keeping your songs alive" mean?
How can I organize songs into a repertoire that helps me review them?
How can maintaining a repertoire deepen my connection to the music within me?
Let’s start here with answers to these questions:
What does the word repertoire mean?
A repertoire includes pieces that a pianist (instrumentalist, vocalist or ensemble) can confidently perform at any given time, whether for personal enjoyment, formal recitals, or impromptu performances.
How does a repertoire of classical pieces differ from one made up of songs?
While piano students who focus exclusively on classical music can build a repertoire of favorite pieces they enjoy and are proficient in, most of my adult piano students choose to play songs. These songs can come from diverse sources, such as the Great American Songbook (featuring composers like George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Jerome Kern), popular Broadway musicals like Cats, Phantom of the Opera, and Les Misérables, or jazz standards such as Take the A Train, Take Five, and Green Dolphin Street.
Unlike classical pieces, which tend to be longer and more structured, a repertoire of songs is typically larger and more versatile. This variety allows for exploration of different styles, genres, and key changes, offering greater flexibility compared to a repertoire composed entirely of classical music.
How do I go about creating a repertoire?
It feels like ages since I began teaching my piano students how to create their own repertoire. While many had heard the term before, most associated it with “highbrow” classical music and never considered that they could have their own. Once I explained how to build a repertoire from familiar songs, the concept started to resonate. Now, as you delve deeper into reawakening the music within you, this idea of developing a repertoire will become increasingly meaningful. By the end of this chapter, I think you’ll feel inspired by what you can achieve.
One of my students, Tammy, has truly embraced the practice of maintaining her repertoire. At the start of each lesson, I ask her, “Tammy, play a song from your repertoire.” She confidently plays her first piece, and I follow up with, “How about another one?” She continues seamlessly, performing five or six selections without hesitation, nerves, or interruptions caused by mistakes. Her secret? Tammy regularly reviews her repertoire.
Is she preparing for Carnegie Hall? No. But she’s found a way to make music a vital part of her daily life—through consistent practice, personal enjoyment, and readiness to perform for herself, during lessons, or for her family.
How to Build a Repertoire of Songs
Gather Your Materials
You’ll need a loose-leaf binder and non-glare sheet protectors (I recommend AVERY-PV119G).
Make a List of Songs You Know
Write down two or more songs that you already know how to play.
Find the Sheet Music
Locate the music for these songs in your piano books, sheet music collections, or arrangements from your teacher or other sources.
Prepare Copies of Your Music
Make clear, easy-to-read copies of any music that’s in books or other hard-to-access locations.
Organize Your Music in Sheet Protectors
Insert each song into a sheet protector. For two-page songs, use two protectors so pages 1 and 2 are side-by-side for easy reading.
For songs longer than two pages, place page 3 on the back of page 2 and add an additional sheet protector for page 4. This setup allows for smooth page turns.
Assemble Your Binder
Take your time organizing the music in your binder.
For your first song, note its key, tempo, and style.
Select your second song that is in a different key, tempo, and style from the first.
Continue choosing songs that vary in these elements. If you only have three songs, that’s perfectly fine—this is just the beginning!
The Best Part of Building Your Repertoire
Your repertoire will grow and evolve over time. You can add new songs, reorder your selections (as long as you follow different key, tempo, and style rule), and remove pieces you no longer want to play. Remember, this is your repertoire, and it’s entirely up to you to shape it.
Is It Necessary to Memorize Your Repertoire?
The short answer is no. The primary goal of having a repertoire is to keep your songs in shape (we’ll discuss this shortly), not necessarily to develop the skill of memorization (we’ll cover that in another chapter).
That said, if you do know some of your songs by heart, you can certainly play them from memory during your repertoire reviews.
Some people find memorization easier than others. For example, Joe, a colleague of mine, who is an excellent pianist and piano tuner, once told me that if he played a song for six consecutive nights during one of his hotel gigs, he could commit it to memory. While this may be an admirable goal, it’s not a requirement.
Even if you rely on reading the music for every song in your repertoire, the act of building and practicing your repertoire still offer many benefits.
What does the phrase "keeping your songs alive" mean?
Almost every week, one of my adult piano students asks me, "What can I do? I can’t remember how to play the songs I’ve learned over the past few weeks." My answer is always one word: repertoire. I explain that one of the most important reasons to build and maintain a repertoire is to “keep your songs alive.” This means regularly reviewing your songs to ensure you remember how to play them.
When I played solo piano every Friday and Saturday evening for 14 years at the Sheraton Milford Hotel, I developed several skills. One of these was the ability to instantly arrange and play a song just by looking at the sheet music. Additionally, I maintained a two-hour repertoire of songs that I could play from memory. Walking into the hotel and playing my memorized repertoire without needing my loose-leaf books felt fantastic.
However, two months after my 14-year engagement ended, I encountered an unexpected challenge: while I could still play the songs I had memorized, I now needed the sheet music to do so. The memorization had faded because I hadn’t been reviewing this repertoire of memorized songs regularly.
This experience taught me a valuable lesson, one that has benefited my students ever since: “keeping your songs alive” requires systematic and consistent review. While it’s not necessary to be able to play your repertoire of songs from memory, it is, however, essential that you review your repertoire consistently. Here’s why: the real value of building and maintaining a repertoire is that it ensures that your music remains fresh and ready to play at any moment.
How can I organize songs into a repertoire that helps me review them?
Part 1: Some background about how and to organize songs
After introducing my students to the concept of building a repertoire and stressing the importance of regular review, my work is far from done. Luckily, my strong organizational side has served me well throughout my career and has also been a great asset to my students.
Over the years, I’ve not only developed my own approach to building repertoires but also found joy in teaching others to do the same. Before diving into the mechanics of "how," let me share a story about one of my professors at the New England Conservatory, John Felice. While his course focused on J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, it was his outside-of-class wisdom that left a lasting impression.
At the end of the term, John believed it was essential for his students to experience all 48 Preludes and Fugues played in sequence. His reasoning? Listening to the music on LPs, cassette tapes, or even CDs required stopping to switch records or discs, disrupting the flow of the music. To preserve the continuity, John decided to give an astonishing live performance: he played all 48 Preludes and Fugues consecutively, with no intermissions or breaks. The performance lasted four hours, and his playing was nothing short of extraordinary.
Afterward, when I shared my amazement, I mentioned that some pieces sounded different compared to how he played them in class. That’s when John revealed a key insight—one that became a major “aha” moment for me:
1. The way you play one piece is influenced by the piece that precedes it, which then affects how you play the next one, and so on.
2. Practicing pieces in the same order you intend to perform them leads to a more cohesive and successful performance.
This advice has profoundly shaped how I approach repertoire building, both for myself and for my students. It’s not just about learning individual pieces but also about understanding how they flow together in a meaningful sequence.
Building on this concept, I began organizing musical sets for my jazz groups in advance, always using a loose-leaf binder for this purpose. Once each set was assembled, I practiced the songs in their performance order. This helped me become familiar and comfortable with how each song transitioned to the next. As the leader of the ensemble, this preparation was essential to directing the flow of the music during the performance.
This method also revolutionized how I approached playing for church services. Instead of juggling multiple books and choir sheet music to be ready for each piece, I created a streamlined system. I organized all the necessary music in order within my binder. Then, during the service, I simply opened the binder and played seamlessly from start to finish. Practicing this way ahead of time not only simplified the process but also boosted my confidence as a performer over time.
Part 2: How to Put Your Songs in Order
Creating a well-organized repertoire is essential for maintaining your ability to play the songs you have learned. In addition, it will help you improve your skills and prepare you for performing these songs (if you choose to do so) for family, friends and others. Here’s the method that has worked for me and my adult piano students for many years:
1. Gather Your Supplies
Use a loose-leaf binder and sheet protectors to store your songs.
Use Avery PV119G non-glare sheet protectors
Use Avery Durable-for Frequent Use 3-Ring Binder (175 page maximum)
2. Start with Your First Song
Select your first piece and place it in a sheet protector in your binder.
Determine the key of the song. (Need help? Check out my blog on identifying a song’s key: How to Identify the Key of Any Song in No Time)
Assess the tempo and style:
Is it slow, medium, or fast?
Is the style flowing, stride, walking bass, Latin rhythm, or a jazz waltz?
3. Choose Your Second Song
Ensure the second piece contrasts with the first by being in:
A different key
A different tempo
A different style
Place it in the next sheet protector in your binder.
Tip: Avoid putting songs back-to-back in the same protector. Keeping them separate makes it easier to reorder or replace songs later.
4. Repeat the Process
Continue selecting songs, ensuring variety in key, tempo, and style.
Add them to your binder until your repertoire includes at least 3 songs to start. As time goes on, your repertoire and can increase to 5, 10, 20, or even more pieces.
By following this system, you’ll create a repertoire filled with a variety of music in different styles that will keep your songs fresh and your practice sessions engaging.
Part 3: How to Structure Your Weekly Practice to Cover Your Repertoire
If your repertoire only includes three songs, organizing your practice might not be much of an issue. But what if you’re working with 10 or even 20 pieces? Playing through your entire repertoire daily would be ideal but isn’t always practical due to time or energy constraints. For years, I’ve shared a simple and effective system with my adult piano students to ensure they cover all their repertoire pieces throughout the week.
Here’s an example plan for a repertoire of 15 songs:
Monday: Practice songs 1 & 2
Tuesday: Practice songs 3, 4 & 5
Wednesday: Focus on your regular assignments—skip repertoire today if necessary
Thursday: Practice songs 6 & 7
Friday: Take the day off if you have plans
Saturday: Use your extra time to practice songs 8, 9, 10 & 11
Sunday: Cover songs 12, 13, 14 & 15
Tips for Success:
Adjust the number of songs for each day to suit your schedule but aim to cover all 15 songs over the course of the week.
Plan for one full day off and one light practice day to keep things manageable.
Play each song twice during practice. The second run-through often helps smooth out rough spots and enhances accuracy.
This approach keeps your repertoire fresh while fitting into a busy week!
How Can Maintaining a Repertoire Deepen Your Connection to the Music Within You?
Part 1: The difference between practicing music to learn and repertoire review
When you’re focused on developing your piano skills, much of your practice time is spent on learning new pieces. Whether it’s exercises, method books, or classical literature, your attention is on the details—perfecting sections and playing accurately. This is equally true for songs you’re learning. After four to six weeks of focused effort, a song might be ready to join your repertoire.
However, during this learning phase, you’re not yet fully connected to the music. Your focus is on mastering the notes, rhythms, and techniques, rather than immersing yourself in the piece as a whole. While learning and practicing are crucial for growth, they offer a very different experience compared to repertoire review.
Years ago, I had an adult student named Rachel, who had been playing piano most of her life. She approached her lessons with dedication, practicing Czerny for finger dexterity, Bach for hand independence, Clementi for technique, and standards from the Great American Songbook for style. With such a full program, Rachel always had a lot of material to practice for each week.
Every lesson, Rachel would complete at least one piece and start a new one. Occasionally she would finish two or three of pieces at her lesson. We would then take the same approach, replacing the two or three selections with new ones for her to start.
Once in a great while, she finished all four pieces by the time she returned to her next lesson. When this happened, I would assign her a fresh set of four new selections to practice. But after one such week, Rachel returned and said, “I feel like I forgot how to play!”
Rachel’s experience showed me the importance of maintaining a repertoire. Despite her extensive musical background, she felt disconnected without revisiting familiar songs she loved. Had I incorporated repertoire review into her lessons all those years ago, Rachel might have retained her confidence and deep connection to her favorite pieces, even as she worked on new challenges.
Part 2: Deeping Your Connection to the Music Within You - Repertoire Review?
Rachel's story highlights how her remarkable dedication to learning four pieces at a time still fell short of fostering a true connection to the music within her. This connection, as it turns out, depends on consistent repertoire review. Regularly revisiting your repertoire over weeks and months does more than just maintain your skills—it deepens your relationship with the music. As you play these pieces with growing confidence and emotion, they resonate on a deeper level, fortifying your bond with the music and revealing your unique musical identity. Through this practice, you won’t just connect to the music within—you’ll fully embrace it as part of who you are as a musician.
Conclusion
At the beginning of this chapter, I emphasized the value of repertoire review as a way to keep your songs alive—a concept I once took for granted. Repertoire review serves as a mechanism to ensure the music you’ve learned doesn’t fade away. Throughout this chapter, I’ve offered extensive guidance on how to build and maintain your repertoire effectively.
However, it’s important to distinguish between the external and internal benefits of this practice. The external benefit is the ability to keep your songs alive, allowing you to perform them confidently for yourself and others. But the internal benefit goes much deeper. By consistently reviewing your repertoire, you connect more profoundly with the music within you. This connection nurtures your confidence, enthusiasm, and vitality, while fostering a resonance that helps you fully embrace your unique musical identity.
This internal benefit—the music within you—is what transforms repertoire review from a mere practice routine into a journey of self-discovery and artistic fulfillment.
About Diana Mascari - Piano Teacher for Adults
Diana Mascari has taught piano to hundreds of adults and children for more than 46 years. She holds two Masters of Music degrees from New England Conservatory and taught keyboard harmony to music majors while pursuing doctoral studies at Boston University. She was the music director for a multi-cultural Presbyterian Church for four decades, and her jazz and classical compositions have been performed worldwide. Diana has been performing for more than 50 years. From solo jazz piano to commercial groups touring the East Coast to leading her own jazz ensembles at colleges and jazz clubs throughout New England.
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