Want a fun way to help your students increase their performance repertoire? Try the Ten Club!
It is important to help students create and maintain a repertoire of performance-ready pieces. The Ten Club is a fun and motivating way for students to do that. The purpose of the Ten Club is to motivate students to build up and maintain a repertoire of ten performance-ready pieces, which they can play at any time and under any circumstance.
Once students have a repertoire of 10 pieces (built up over time) they become a member of the club.
Ten memorized and performance ready pieces sounds like an incredible and overwhelming challenge, doesn’t it? And yet, it really ends up being much easier than it sounds. It starts with just one piece. Once the first piece is well on its way and memorization has begun you introduce a second piece to start learning. When the first piece is mostly or completely memorized then it’s time to begin memorizing the second piece, while you introduce a third piece to begin learning, etc. Before you know it the goal has been met. The Piano Repertoire List is an excellent way to help you and your student keep track of how many pieces have been learned and how many more pieces are needed before becoming a Ten Club member. Each time a student masters a piece and performs it the piece gets added to the list. 
As a side note, in order to keep ten pieces memorized ongoing it is important for you to continue having your student review (and play for you) the pieces he/she has memorized. Once a piece has been learned (and even performed) it does NOT get tossed to the side. Instead, it is important to continue to re-assign (for review) pieces from the Repertoire List every so often. After all, the goal with the Ten Club is to always have ten pieces ready to perform at any time.
The sense of accomplishment a student receives when accomplishing this goal is amazing. What an opportunity for confidence building this is, and what an opportunity it is for you to praise your student.
On top of the internal sense of accomplishment a student feels when accomplishing this goal there is the added bonus of earning an external REWARD!
Once your student has accomplished the goal of learning and performing ten pieces you don’t need to discard them all and start anew. Rather, in order to keep ten pieces memorized at all times it is better to simply replace one old piece with one newer piece until the Repertoire List is filled with ten newer pieces. And, once the student has learned ten new pieces again he/she will receive another award certificate or additional reward.
There are so many ways to make the Ten Club a fun experience for your student. Consider having a “Bravo Board” where you can list your student’s Ten Club accomplishment. Or, perhaps have a section of your studio set aside specifically for posting pictures and notifications of accomplishments of your Ten Club members. Be creative and make this a fun and rewarding experience for your student. It is well worth the effort and time to accomplish this goal! Your students will always have something to play when a friend asks, “Do you play the piano? Cool. Will you play something for me?,” or for school talent shows, church programs, recitals and more.
And, as a reminder, money which you spend on rewards and incentives or other studio materials are business expenses which can be used as a tax write-off at the end of the year.
Buy it once, Use it forever!
