Preparing Students for an Upcoming Performance

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

With my students’ recital coming up this Sunday, we have been working on all ways to keep their pieces fresh and polished all the way up to the minute they walk up to the piano. While many students may think that they just need to do run-throughs of their pieces until the big day, it may not be the most effective way to prepare. Here are a few practice tips students can use the ensure a successful performance.

Have pieces ready at least 3 weeks before the performance date

“Ready” here means memorized with all the correct notes, rhythms, phrasing, and dynamics. Students should also have a good idea of the speed at which they would like to perform the piece (and with a metronome marking for more advanced students). A few memory slips are allowed, but the entire piece must be playable without the music from beginning to end.

Spend solid time mentally practicing

As someone who never really learned about mental practicing until a few years ago, I have spent more time trying to figure out how to do it than actually doing it, and I believe it is still a skill that I have yet to truly incorporate in my own playing. However, I have been able to add it to my students’ practice routines in small doses. We go through each piece and develop a “summary” of the different phrases, dynamics, harmonic shifts, and melodic patterns. Students map out their piece from beginning to end on paper by writing in their own words what they understand about each section. I then have them play the sections one at a time and tell them to sit with their eyes closed and hands off the keyboard and imagine themselves playing with the correct notes and finger numbers. Each section is usually 2-4 measures long. For particularly difficult passages, I will condense them down measure by measure. Eventually they can bring sections together and be able to play the entire piece in their head without touching a key.

Mental practicing is all about working on knowing exactly what is happening in the piece without needing any physical or aural aids. We spent a lot of time practicing and developing muscle memory and aural memory for pieces we know, but it is only half of the process of internalizing a piece of music. When students can formulate a way of understanding the piece outside of playing it, their memory is much more secure.

Spot practicing

Practicing at different points in a piece help with memory, with agility, and with nerves. If a student can start anywhere, they can save time practicing by focusing on the sections that are the most difficult. After a piece is memorized, I have my students categorize the different sections and practice starting each one. I then have them jump around and play out of order. A good game is to number the sections and call them out in the middle of playing so students can get used to switching gears and performing in the moment. It is also a good practice strategy when time is a concern. A lot can get done in a short amount of time if a student works only on passages that need the most work.

Know how it begins .. and ends!

And also how TO begin and end! The week before the recital, I have my students practice walking to their piano bench, taking time to breathe and focus before they start their piece. When they are finished, I have them practice their bow. Practicing this etiquette gives them a framework that they can stick to no matter what happens in their performance.

Recreate performance environment

I tell my students to play for their family and friends as much as they can before the recital, even in the early stages when a piece is not completely polished. Getting better at performing takes a lot of performing, even if it is only in one’s living room. Setting a goal of how many times they need to play for others can be a concrete way to help complete the task. When they get to the real thing, it will be much less of a mountain to climb and more of a walk around the neighborhood with which they are familiar.

Work through mistakes

I always tell students to keep composure and never stop playing, but also to never repeat themselves. Students who have done the necessary mental and spot practicing have less trouble with mistakes, but of course, sometimes students have too much difficulty with a passage and for various reasons have a hard time making it through without errors. A good way to practice, besides drilling the section(s), is for the student to push through using similar harmonic/melodic material and move on to the next section when doing a run-through. Students can try their hand at improvising their way through the sections, or even through the entire piece. They might not want to do that in the recital, but if there is a memory slip, they can feel more secure by knowing how to work with the musical material. When students understand compositional mechanics, even if it just melodic notes or textures, they will not feel lost when mistakes happen.

Hope you all enjoy some of these tips and please comment with any advice/additional thoughts.