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I usually have a Winter Recital and a Spring Recital (my two "formal" recitals), as well as casual in-house recitals and performances at local venues. I have always made my two formal recitals mandatory (all students in my studio have to perform unless they are out of town that week), and never had a problem with students not wanting to participate.

However, I recently moved to a new area and just started my studio here earlier this year, so I have a lot of beginners. I did not specifically say the Winter Recital was required of all students, and now I am finding that half the students (and parents!) do not want to participate, because the students are "nervous" or "too new" to piano (according to the parents). They are happy to participate in my in-home recitals, but they are scared to death of being in their very first recital, and nothing I say seems to help!

I'm just curious - are your recitals required of all students in your studio, or optional? Do you say in your policies or recital invitations that they are mandatory? What do you do about students who do not want to participate?

PianoKitty, my recitals are not "mandatory." By mandatory, you mean that if you miss a recital, you're dropped from the studio (what else could you do?).

However, I strongly encourage participation, and I explain why.

1 - Piano is a performance art, and you will be constantly peppered with requests to perform, so participating in recitals is a good start for making yourself comfortable in this situation.

2 - Students under pressure to perform will be more serious about their learning and will prepare more thoroughly.

3 - Many formerly shy students found out that performing was actually fun and now wonder why they were so shy about it.

There are other reasons, I'm sure.

I must admit, I'm a little nervous for my first recital too. My former teacher didn't require them. I was taking rag time piano at the time (he called it popular music but I think ragtime is a better description. He was in his 70’s so his opinion of popular music and mine are not the same. May he RIP). I just started taking classical lesson about 3 months ago and I'm progressing well. We have a recital in June. The thing that bothers me about it is that I'm the only adult student my teacher has. I am going to feel out of place if the recital ends up being a bunch of children and me, a 30 year old man.

I have two mandatory recitals a year one at Christmas and one near the end of the school term. I have other competitions, recitals, and events that I inform students of that they can take advantage of during the year but do not require those only if the students are interested do I have them participate in them. By the way my mandatory is simply stated as not an option. But I would never not teach a student who really felt they could not play in one. Usually when put right the students even though nervous agree to play in them adult or other ages. If they truely are ready to fall apart I simply require them to attend. Usually after they see it is not painful and everyone is supportive, they are ready to give it a try the next time around. Recitals give students something to work towards and gives back to those listening to their achievement, enjoyment. It also teaches students to think under pressure and present themselves in a proffessional manner something that will serve them in good stead when they go for their job interviews later on in life.

Yeeeeeah that is seriously bugging me. I didn't even think of that when I asked my teacher to get me into a competition. I don't mind performing in itself but what would the parents say? Considering my local population, if I do badly, I might hear parents encouraging their kids to make sure not to grow up to be like that crazy not lawyer, not doctor, not engineer, not rich housewife lady who fails at bullying kids by entering piano competitions. If I do well, I can only imagine the uproar about fairness, how they didn't know adults could enter, etc.



As for the OP, I can't imagine recitals being mandatory because I certainly can't excuse myself from work for a recital. This is the part of town where even if you had H1N1, you'd still be required to function normally, masks not allowed, no wasting time with hand washing, and you won't be excused from your in-person service job without penalty or retribution, so asking for two hours off for a recital would translate into "let me go play games just because".

Even when I had lessons when I was a kid, I didn't feel comfortable in recitals because I couldn't afford the proper attire. Everyone was in their sparkling new custom made dresses and the best I had was a shirt and pants that were actually new and not hand-me-down torn rags with stains between the legs for once.

Feel I have to add a positive recitial experience.

In my first recital I was the only adult, but it actually didn't bother me to much. I made sure there was noone there in the audience who knew me though. I said to myself that noone would care or remember about that adult in the recital, and that they will worry more about their own kids then some unknown student. And if they noticced at all, they would just think "how nice, a brave lass, maybe I should start playing again?". I tried to focus on making people enjoy the very limited piano playing I could offer.

It was odd to see most of the kids not beeing especially nervous about playing at all. So I thought, ok just enjoy yourself and learn from whatever goes wrong.

I do admit that all following recitals, including mainly adult beginners, were more fun.

Mandatory, no. Highly encouraged, yes. I have a few students that do not play on a recital, mainly adult beginners.

Well, one needs to consider the student's position as well. It does make sense that a student might not want to participate in a recital, and in all honesty, maybe the students are right, if they feel that what they are playing is not really good.

As a student I had done a few recitals at a very young age, with "silly" pieces (I hope you understand what I mean), and then I just stopped doing recitals. I didn't mind the croud, didn't mind the exams, wasn't nervous, but just didn't feel that I liked the pieces that I was FORCED to play.

My first recital after many years was one where I picked my own programm, studied on my own, with a help from a guitarist and also performed my own prelude in D for piano and flute. I was 15 at the time! Then at the age of 18 played the Grieg Sonata in Em, and was very very happy to perform in public, since I was very proud. After that, I had things to play and feel proud and was always very happy to perform.

Thing is this: If the students are capable of understanding this and feel somewhat ashamed from what they are playing (for example, a student around 13-14 might feel weird to go out in public and play... a Beyer piece, no matter how lovely.). Since your students are not avoiding the in-house recitals, it does mean that they are not openly against, but just feel they need the right opportunity to go completely "public".

My concerts are very nearly compulsory. I'll do my utmost to convince the "oh I couldn't possibly play in front of people" kids/teens that it is part of playing, and not performing is like not using your left hand. I do this because the lead up to a concert and the buzz afterwards increase the rate of learning so it's an opportunity that I wouldn't want any student to miss out on, however shy/anxious. And because I never got a single performance opportunity through piano lessons when i was a kid

I try to make it easy to join in: I have 3 or 4 concerts a year (enough to get used to it), the concerts are casual and intimate and fun rather than a formal recital, even the absolute beginners do their pieces (i really like watching the first efforts of small kids), and I make the parents/audience all join in singing a canon. So you see a kid might be nervous but MUM and DAD have to SING!
ok so there are 2 parents that keep their mouths shut(but I know who you are...). It's more of a party with dinner and piano music than a recital.

The more formal and scary competitions and exams I encourage where useful to the student, but not compulsory. And regarding the silly pieces, or performances that wouldn't get the student much satisfaction; I go out of my way to creatively program to try and avoid this - using theatre, comedy, props, entertaining lyrics, their own composition etc.

I agree with Nikolas that you have to be proud of the piece. I work really hard and finding what kids like, buying lots of beginner repertoire, and the kids have a lot of say in what they'll play. I wrote a lot of beginner pieces that I use over the first few years of learning also that are an attempt at very easy and addictive repertoire. Some of these have been popular at concerts. Oh dear i just blew my own horn

I completely understand this. However, I feel that if I used that kind of thinking I would never play in public until I felt confident that I was an acomplished pianist and had a terrific program. That would likely stop me from playing for others at all. If teachers try, I believe it's possible to create small in-house recitals with nice, or at least fun or interesting pieces, nevermind how easy some pieces are, where everyone could enjoy themselves and share some music making.

I tell my students they are going to prepare for a recital, I never leave it as an option and have never had to say they *had* to perform. However, I also tell my students that I would never give them something that they couldn't do.

Encourage the parents and students to give it a try, and if it's not ready by the time the recital comes around then we'll decide together at that point. John gives some good points about performing, and yes, the child will be asked to play whenever a family member or friend finds out they take lessons. What will they do if they have not been equipped with the experience of performing? Reassure them that you will help the child prepare for performing and dealing with nervousness by having them "perform" for students, family, friends, whoever will listen as much as possible before the actual recital. That way, they've played the piece in performance settings a few times already and it will be much easier.

Also, you will need to work with them in the coming months to address their issues of anxiety. Many children don't have bad experiences yet to hamper them, so it's just the fear of the unknown. If they understand that most of your other students are in the same boat that may help, too. The goal is to get the student from thinking the recital is all about them to it's all about sharing music.

Yes! that's what it is about. I love hearing kids play. I hear them every day but never get tired of it (so far).

Getting to know other students seems to be useful too, because so much piano is an alone activity. Helps them to feel part of a little community. So if there was anyone who really couldnt/wouldnt play I'd drag them along just for socialising and food etc.

Yes, of course, we teachers sit around and think up pieces for students to play which will embarrass them. Good grief. Isn't it better to inculcate the attitude that you do your best regardless of the task at hand?

Personally, I always give students options on what to perform from current/recent repertoire, but, that's one more argument for having students maintain repertoire, isn't it?

Mandatory recitals were the major reason I stopped taking piano lessons when I was young. I simply could not stand playing in thsm--even if I did well, I would be shaking for hours before and after the recital.

Depends on the level of the student really and their aesthstics actually! If someone has been raised with listening only piano pieces from the radio/CDs, then maybe, just maybe he's used to top pieces and anything lower will feel bad if played in public like in "I'm preparing and when I'm ready I'll go out, no worries".

It's hardly unreasonable to expect something like that from a student, and by all means I didn't imply for a sec that teachers don't think about that, but that the students might think differently.

Who made it mandatory? Who enforced it? What were the consequences if you refused to play? How often did you perform? Once a year? No wonder you didn't like them.

I don't expect perfection from my students. They know this. I want them to do their best, of course, but they're students. It depends on the age of the student and their maturity, but I have different approaches I use depending on the situation.

How do you prepare your students for performing? The week before the recital, or do you have them perform all year long, so that the recital is just one more performance opportunity?

Several years ago, I stopped putting all the students in recitals. Some kids just can't handle the heat. And it becomes an awkward situation for the kid, the parents, and everyone in the room witnessing the struggle at the piano. I'd rather have these kids play the piano for as long as possible without destroying any iota of interest left in them.

But for the kids who said they'll play at the recital, but fail to show up--I won't be so nice.

I require participation in recitals, but for new students, I almost always have them play duets. That way they aren't up there alone.

No one feels comfortable on the stage unless they are well-prepared and go in with the proper attitude. And it's almost always the case that nerves will kick in. This is an opportunity to learn how to work through the stress. They will have to do it in many of other situations. They should learn it early in a supportive atmosphere.

It's hardly about perfection at all! As you said they are students! It's simply about what they can play and what they want to play! I always wanted to play VERY difficult pieces so since I couldn't I just dodged recitals as best I could! When I got the opportunity to play something I was proud of, I started recitals again.

For a more mature person, most things "bellow" Chopin and Mozart feel "inadequate" for a recital. PERHAPS! No matter how well someone might be able to play a piece from Anna Magadlena, if they feel it's not 'recital material' they simply might refuse to play it. Same goes for other pieces.

Mid ways. I hate to leave a few pieces all year long. I get bored and they as well. I try to put more pieces and when the time closer I just concetrate on that one/two pieces. On older students and more difficult programs, the preparation time grows slightly longer, but I still try to offer alternatives and more than a 'few' pieces all year long...