Marian Lamoureux of Hinsdale | Repertoire That Fits the Student, Not the Teacher
Marian Lamoureux Hinsdale
Most piano teachers pick repertoire from a list. The same baroque pieces, the same classical sonatinas, the same intermediate romantic works that appear in every method book and exam syllabus.
Marian Lamoureux of Hinsdale uses those lists as a starting point and almost never as a finishing point. The student in front of her tells her what to assign next.
Repertoire selection is the least visible part of teaching piano and probably the most consequential. The right piece in the right week can keep a student playing for another year.
The wrong piece can quietly close the door. Most parents never see the choice being made. The teacher who is paying attention is making it constantly.
Reading the student is the actual skill
A teacher who hands every fourth-year student the same Bach two-part invention is teaching the syllabus, not the kid. Lamoureux thinks repertoire is a conversation.
She listens to what the student gravitates toward in their own time, what they avoid, what gets them animated in a lesson. Those signals are the real assignment data.
A nine-year-old who plays through the boring sections of a piece in a hurry to get back to the dramatic part is telling you something. A teenager who keeps mentioning a piece they heard in a film is telling you something.
The teacher's job is to act on it. The student should not have to ask twice for a piece to come on the music stand. The teacher should already be moving.
Why technical level alone is a poor filter
Two students at the same technical level can need entirely different repertoire. One needs precision work, so a baroque piece that demands careful voicing helps.
Another needs to feel music in their body, so a romantic piece with weight and rubato might serve better. Same level, different prescriptions.
Marian has assigned the same piece to twenty students over the years and watched it land differently each time. The piece was never the variable. The student always was.
A method book that ranks pieces by difficulty alone gives a teacher only one axis to choose on. Real assignment uses several axes at once.
Style and mood. What the student needs to grow into. What they need to recover from.
When to assign something the student does not want
Repertoire selection is not pure indulgence. There are weeks when a student needs a piece they would not have picked, because it will build a skill they cannot get any other way.
Lamoureux does this without apology, but she explains it. The student deserves to know why a piece is on the bench.
She tells them why the piece matters, what it will teach them, and how long they will be on it. The student knows the piece has a purpose.
That is different from being handed a piece because it was next in the book. The framing changes how the student practices it.
The case for arrangements of music the student already loves
A careful piano arrangement of a song the student already loves can do something an exam piece often cannot. It can connect their playing to the music in their headphones.
Lamoureux assigns these arrangements deliberately, often as a complement to a more demanding classical piece. The two pieces sit on the bench at the same time.
The student practices the arrangement because they want to. They practice the harder piece because they have to.
Both kinds of practice teach piano, and over time the line between them blurs. The student begins to bring the same care to the classical piece they brought to the song they loved.
There is no perfect formula for what to assign next. There is only a teacher paying attention, a student who feels seen by the music in front of them, and a long enough relationship for both of those to compound. Marian believes that is the whole job.