Harder isn't always better.

When you're learning and developing as a student, moving on to harder pieces means more challenges, techniques, and musical decisions to learn from. But once you're out of college, giving solo recitals, concerto concerts, and gigging various place, are harder pieces still necessary?

I adored my college harp teacher. I learned more from her than I thought possible, she trained me to be my own critic, and she had brilliant musical ideas. But I always hated having certain pieces I wanted to learn be shot down because they weren't at a high enough level of difficulty.

While I understand that it's important to learn the difficult pieces, and to show what you can do, sometimes the easier pieces are just better pieces. Just because it has a hundred more notes and goes much faster doesn't make it more beautiful, more challenging musically, or even more difficult technically. Being a "virtuoso" isn't at the top of my list of things to do. However playing pieces that I can connect with emotionally and that the audience will be touched by is always one of my goals. And to achieve that, lately I've been going back to the easier pieces.

For one thing, sometimes the high levels of difficulty can be so distracting that you don't even bother with the musicality. For another, it can feel unapproachable for the listener. Finally, the saying "less is more" applies to music too. Sometimes less complexity means more beautiful melodies to relate to.

I think in a lot of ways, the easier pieces are just as challenging as the advanced ones. Once you hit a point in your playing where you can pretty much learn any piece, the real challenge is control. Just because you can go fast and loud doesn't mean you have to, just as being able to throw rubato in doesn't always make it appropriate.

I have nothing against playing very difficult pieces and concertos. Certainly the challenge is an important part of being a musician and the repertoire has to be learned. But don't discount anything less as being unimportant or "learning pieces." Sometimes the simple things matter too.