Ooooh, the "What's the best recital slot for the adult beginner?" question!

I don't know about anyone else, but I take this whole slotting business seriously. My teacher's recitals start with the student playing the easiest piece and end with the most difficult piece. Early on, this was rather tricky. My first recital piece slotted me with the 11-12 year old kids, all of whom have nerves of steel and tend to perform flawlessly.

Now, though, I am getting close to the slot where I would be ending the first half of the recital, before intermission. We are going to have to find a different slot for me because I would be too nervous having to try to end the thing on a high note.

Cindy -- who wishes she could go first and get it out of the way, but who thinks it would be unseemly to preempt a five-year-old kid

Frank - My piano is actually in Seattle (did I mention that? - old age setting in!) I'm thinking I will be able to take delivery no later than end of September. Hopefully sooner. Definitely before the snow flies. I don't want to take delivery of a grand piano in a snowstorm in North Idaho! I'm going to see the piano next week. Alex HErnandez has it for me in safekeeping!

Question for those of you with children at the ricitals -- is it just us adults that sweat so much when we play at recitals? I know of course that children also can get stage fright, but from what I've seen, they seem to get past it very quickly. I find I can start off very well but by the middle start to fade out and lose my spot in the music. (I am working on making sure I know how to read the music and find my place again because that really improves my ability to restart after flubbing it.)

So Frank - I noticed on the What Does your Piano Thread that ChickGrand doesn't wear any shoes either. You better give her a hard time too!!

Nan - It seems like the children I've seen play don't yet have that same fear of failure. If I ask my son how he feels before playing in front of an audience or judges he says, "fine Mom?" and looks at me like I'm from another planet. He always loves playing for people too if someone comes over all of sudden you'll start to hear him playing. I do notice some body language that would seem like nerves are somewhere there; My son gets very shy & quiet when asked to introduce or take a bow.

teachum - I believe chickgrand is a he

Cathy

Teach,

I missed that one . This could get serious if it catches on. There could be ANARCHY .

Keep peddlin Teach.

:rolleyes:

Well - well I finally actually figured out how to make these things work - so simple!!!

Cathy S - Yeah I got told (pm'd) Oh well - I still think Chick Grand is a "chick" name. But now I see the "other meaning" I thought Chick was a Chick with a Chick. Sorry Chick!!! :p

Phew, I have just finished my group recital! Now, I can finally get that irritating Clayderman piece out of my head!

The recital started with about 12 people playing a classical piece each and the remaining 5 playing easy-listening stuff. It turned out that not only adult beginners get nervous during recitals, some of the kids are rather nervous too. And that helps a little... Some got nervous to the point of stopping the music for one or two seconds before repeating the passage again. The tension could also be attributed to the fact that this was the first time most of us played on a grand and it can be rather alien. This was my third time playing on a grand and I still could not get used to the heavier actions. For eg, I didn't played hard enough on some bass notes and it seemed that the sound that came out was a little inaudible. I also found the treble a little bright but otherwise, it was a really fine piano and it is of course way better and more expressive than what I get to practise on at home (Yamaha U1). It's a Seiler grand by the way.

I was generally satisfied with my own performance although I know I can do better (at home of course! ). Like most people, I made some mistakes during the performance but *maybe* the crucial difference is that I made my mistakes in the softer accompaniment part (when often I didn't play the notes at all or due to the above mentioned reason - heavier actions) while my melody notes were singing and went on smoothly. This somehow covered up the mistake. And to my utter surprise, I was voted one of the 2 favourite performers! I thought I wouldn't stand a chance as parents might actually like the kids better but well, lady luck's on my side. Yipee! The easy-listening Clayderman must have helped too.

After so many weeks of preparation, I am finally relieved that it had come to an end. All I know now is that I will be there come next year!

Thanks for listening. This is a great forum!

I forgot to add that I have some pictures taken for those that are interested but the problem is that I have no idea on how to post them. I think it needs some webhost or something and I don't have one either.

No audio files though...