Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum What is your recital policy?

I'm just curious about everyone's opinion and policy on recitals. Do you make it a requirement? Do you invite everyone to perform or only your hard working students? Do you charge your students an admission fee?

I know there are so many factors and I am pretty comfortable with my recital situation right now, I was just curious about others.

I had a parent tell me last week that her kid decided not to play in the Christmas concert this year because he gets too nervous and they just "aren't recital people." Uhh...COP OUT. I was really irritated by that but I have no desire to force anyone to perform. My spring recitals are very informal and feature a lot of contemporary music. The Christmas recitals are more traditional and formal. She said that they would be down for the spring recital next year but they don't want to do the Christmas one. It doesn't seem very fair to me that they should pick and choose which "type" of recital they would like to attend...thoughts?

You'll never win this one with them unless you make all the recitals less formal, which I see no reason for you to do. But I bet you they will find an excuse for the spring recital.

It's a shame that people aren't willing to avail themselves of all the tools to educate their children. I'm not happy either with the nervous nellies, but what can you do?

My policy is recitals are "mandatory" before age 13, and after that age, students should attend even if they don't perform.

I do not ever make recitals a requirement. My thoughts:

~ Not every student takes piano to eventually perform at a recital. Some study to develop eye-hand coordination, for personal enrichment, or as a springboard for another instrument they'd rather play.

~ I will not coerce students to play, and I don't want them there if they don't want to be there.

* Exception: hand-picked students who have a distinct performance goal and had to pass a preliminary audition to study with me. This is a different breed of student.

~ My minimal prerequisites for recital performance: students must be in the middle of the level one book and their piece must be 16 measures in length with no repeats.

What the heck? Piano is a performance art. What are you learning to play for? So the four walls can listen to you? Most people, especially young students, are learning so they can play for or with family, friends, etc. You'll never become comfortable doing so by avoiding it.

A young lady just left the study who was a transfer - from teachers which didn't offer performance opportunities. I explained to her that every last one of us were absolutely terrified of our first performances and I expected she'd pretty much feel the same we we did. But my students play for each other monthly. And we do four recitals a year. After a couple of years, it's a race to the piano, not a contest to see who can grip their chair the strongest.

Experience may not totally wipe out stage anxiety, but it sure helps reduce it to manageable levels.

With that in mind, understand that I don't force students to perform, but I strongly encourage them to face their demons and give it a try.

And that takes me to the subject of memorization. The deeper a piece is memorized, the more at ease you'll be playing it in front of others. We select pieces to memorize for upcoming events, and then we select one or two pieces to be memorized for life. If you haven't done so with your students, why not give it a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results.

My policy is that everyone must play in the recital. First-years are exempt especially if they are very young, but after that everyone must play in the recital. No exceptions.

Competitions and exams are optional; festivals are essentially mandatory. Students progress better when there is a clear-cut goal set in front of them.

I agree with these points. While the parents of young and average age beginners are very supportive of recitals, parents of older beginners (ages 10 through high school) often don't push their children to participate. The goals for students at that age are very different. They often don't care about performing in recitals, and sometimes feel embarrassed if they're performing with mostly younger students who are playing more advanced pieces than they are.

Performing is an extremely important skill. It doesn't just teach kids to play in front of people, it gives them experience preparing and presenting their work to an audience, which is something we ALL do when we grow up.

I frequently meet people who are scared to death of speaking in public, giving business presentations, or even going on job interviews. I always think to myself: "Hmm...they probably should've performed when they were young. Now the stakes are high and they have no experience presenting themselves."

Performing is a life skill. I highly recommend it for all of my students.

That being said, if I have a student who for some reason has not been able to adequately prepare (for example, a student of mine had a sports tournament and was gone for 4 days before a recital), then I don't force them to play. There are also special cases. I won't force a 15 year-old beginner to play; it's a little disheartening to play something on a recital that kids 7 years younger are playing.

I should add that both informal and formal events count as recitals. Some of the older beginners don't go to the formal recitals, but they do play in front of their families or at the piano parties. If they can't perform, they record videos for family members.

I suppose "no exceptions" was a bit harshly worded, but ALL of my students get performance opportunities. No one can opt out.

The studio recitals we have twice a year are not optional. I can then focus my teaching on how to work through performance stress (which I struggle with myself) instead of discussing whether or not they'll perform.

I have yet to have a student who did not benefit from this and get better at it each year. Some of my most nervous young performers grew up to tell me that, even though they don't love performing for others, they learned to work through it and can play fairly comfortably for an audience.

Our monthly studio classes give students an opportunity to play for their peers and this helps a lot. I'm also fortunate to be part of a local teachers group and we have optional recitals at nursing homes throughout the year. Less formal. I encourage my students to play whenever they have the chance.

I play duets with my younger students who enjoy that added support and I'll consider any piece, any length as a recital piece. But you've gotta play!

My recitals are very informal. I do not make them mandatory because most of my students are very young students. I have not had a recital in over a year because I had many students drop my studio due to the economy.

Now this Saturday I'm having my first recital. I also have former students come and play too. My youngest performer is six years old and she is excited to play this Saturday. I have one other student who wants to perform to build up her voice performance resume' for upcoming auditions in the near future.

My studio is growing again at a fast pace and most parents and students alike having the option of not playing at recital. I also perform at the recital as well.

It doesn't seem fair to me that a student should be forced to participate in a religious event, unless you run a religious studio.

No. It is NOT. It can be. It is for many people. But it is most definitely NOT for all people. It is not for me.

1) As you very well know, Glenn Gould pulled entirely away from the world of performance. You can say that his recordings are "performances", but I would argue that they were born out of his need to share his particular musical viewpoints with the world by AVOIDING playing in public. And he frequently talked about this.

2) I would argue that the most polished performances by Horowitz were not done in public. His recordings during his "private years", middle 1950s to middle 1960s, were amazing. A great deal of what his public performances post 1966 were all about was proving "he could still pull it off in public", and sometimes he could not. So what?

I taught an adult for many years. I would still be teaching her but for the fact that she had to move to a different part of the US, and I still work with her long distance. She loves playing. It is a huge part of her life. She refuses to play for anyone but her husband or for a teacher.

Should I tell her she is wrong? Should I tell her that she should feel some obligation to play for other people when she does not?

Perhaps those of us who don't like public spectacles are in the minority, but I for one am pretty much disgusted with the world of "live performances", and the world of piano competitions make me want to puke.

It is, by the way, a very well known fact that Horowitz never got over stage fright. There are many other famous players who never got over the feeling of sheer terror, before walking on stage. So it's not true that playing and playing and playing in front of people, even with critical acclaim, cures performance anxiety.

And on the subject of memory: I want people to feel that they are playing as well as they can. I don't give a d*** if it is with or without music. I will continue to scream that memory is incredibly over-stressed. It has it's place, and most certainly there are many bravura compositions that require us to look at our hands, which then does demand memorization. Memorization is thus a necessary skill for SOME music.

But I continue to stress that people who claim that ALL music is better played with music, that NO music can truly be understood, mastered, or performed as effectively as possible WITH music, are distorting what music is all about.

Also: right now I have a nine year-old student who is playing two pieces, about to be performed, with absolutely no problem with the music in front of him. In spite of my drilling him in every possible way, without music, multiple starting places, analysis, much more, he is still more rocky without the music.

And for the record, John, both for your benefit and for the benefit of everyone else here, I have a huge respect for you as a person and as a teacher. But in these two areas we have very strong disagreements.

Well, Gary, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I definitely represent one side of the argument. I just cannot imagine learning any musical art, whether singing, instrumental playing, dance, etc., for self alone.

Playing for friends or family is hardly a public spectacle, IMO. Nor is it an unreasonable request that if you tell someone you play the piano, and they request that you play them something, that you actually be able to do so. Otherwise, what are they to conclude? I'll wager you play for students and parents all the time, though not sitting on a stage in a spotlight.

I suspect you're protesting formal recitals and contests more than anything else. I seldom enroll my students in contests, because of the hundreds of reasons listed in other threads. But I currently have a student who came to me and said she wanted to learn a concerto so she could try the concerto competition next fall. I could insist she hire her own accompanist or I could do it myself. It's rather easy, so I'd certainly lose a lot of credibility if I begged off.

FWIW, Rubinstein didn't get over stage fright either, but he learned how to cope with it. Thankfully.

On the subject of memorization. I think deep memorization is closely allied to playing by ear. In both cases the performer needs to know the structure and flow of the piece. It's interesting, but most "classical" pianists cannot play a decent version of Happy Birthday without some notes in front of them. That's rather sad. How about Auld Lang Syne? With New Year's coming up, I've run through it a few times on the piano already, just to refresh myself with various harmonizations.

Just some thoughts from the flip side of the coin, and for the record, quoting someone I highly respect: I have a huge respect for you as a person and as a teacher. But in these two areas we have very strong disagreements.

There we agree, and I encourage all my young students to do that. Adults are different. Also, when I have extroverted students who love to show off, I encourage them to play for people any chance they get.

Partial agreement. Taken to an extreme it means that we are EXPECTED to play at the whim of people who think that because we can, we should be on call to do it. You might even agree with that a little.

Correct. I play for students whenever they ask, and I do a lot of demonstration for parents. I think there is a whole universe of possible misunderstanding between people who are highly extroverted and highly introverted.

Exactly. I especially dislike recitals because of the way students are queued up. People seldom think about the fact that when we perform, we choose exactly when, and what we are going to play. We usually choose to start with something that we can play in our sleep, or with a gun to our heads, and we ease into the "meat" of a program. And we choose encores, which are also things we know we can nail on the worst of days.

I taught brass for years. No one ever accompanied for my students but me. And if a student asked to play in a concerto competition, I'd jump on that. I would most certainly play the orchestral reduction as accompaniment.

I think there is truth in that, but I think it is much more complicated. I gigged for years, so to say that I had hundreds of standards in my head is no exaggeration. I did prefer to have a lead sheet for anything that was not burned into my brain. But if someone concluded that I do not have a very deep grasp of a piece of music because I balk at playing it without a score, that person would be very wrong. I don't think I can explain that though.

Sorry for the grumpy post. I'll explain in a PM if necessary. I had a teaching day straight from h***.

No, I agree with it a lot! A lot of my early posts were railing against precisely this mentality.

My reason for encouraging students to perform, and encouraging is the operative word, is to compensate for a deficiency in my first teachers. As a child, I was embarrassed beyond measure, having been announced that I was an accomplished pianist and would I please play something. No warning, no preparation. It took years, ney, decades to overcome the embarrassment (it was childish, but then, I was a child. Go figure). As an adult, I would quickly concoct a plausible excuse to back out and/or turn the tables, but children don't know how to do this. It's fairly easy to have students maintain repertoire and there is a certain satisfaction gained when called upon unexpectedly, to be actually able to sit down and play something. My early teachers would have done me and other students a great favor if they had prepared us to play off the cuff, as it were. And as Kreisler notes, it would have helped in other situations, where we are called upon to present in public.

BTW, I totally understand the bad day thing. There must be something especially wrong with Wednesdays. Last week's was a killer. Go figure.

Monthly group studio classes/piano parties, whatever you want to call them, can be very effective in helping students to deal with stage fright, I am finding in my own studio. Invite the students to attend and make it very informal and optional. They perform for each other, offer feedback, and play music-related games. Fun and really breaks the ice.
Helps prepare for recital time.

John,

I thought of going "underground", into "PM-world" to respond, but perhaps it's good to talk a bit "out in the open".

I think "encouraging" says it all. The reaction to playing in front of people can range from extreme embarrassment, even a feeling of total humiliation, to pure excitement and joy.

I'm in a store environment, and I picked this way of teaching because I have no room at home, I LOATHE collecting money (probably because I totally s*** at it), and I like having things taken care of for me so that I can teach.

Because of this environment one of the things we can do is to have any of our students play in a situation that is rather informal. Right now we set it up so that they play on the third Saturday of every month. Last time one student came in shorts and a tee-shirt, another came in a suit. But they both played well, and that's all I care about.

I tell them that I don't care how they dress. I just want them to play. Their families come, lots of videos, pictures, and it's just fun. No one has to do it. Anyone gets to do it.

They can play with music or without it. I make sure they are prepared. I ask those who are young to play four or five times with music for the simple reason that I am very strong in teaching reading, and all of them are absolutely confident with music in front of them. When they go to the next stage and play without music, I insist on clearing it by carefully testing the memory. I expect them to be able to start cold from multiple starting-places, or play musical chairs with me as I play one phrase, then they come in and play the next, and so on. I will ask them to play phrases, moving from end to beginning, then play the most difficult phrases, then more random start places. This is simply an extension of what I do with those who read. And part of the preparation is that when we have a dry run, they don't get to start over even if the wheels come off, because part of learning to play in front of people is never letting the audience know when we have problems - and never stopping.

I like this idea of staggering each month because only a few people pick to play at the same time, the kids get to see each other play, and the informal atmosphere is very VERY supportive.

However, when students of mine decide to play in a more formal setting, I am deadly serious about preparation. I want to make sure that they feel pressure, in lessons, that will be ABOVE anything they experience on stage. By pressure, I mean challenging them to do things that they will not actually have to do. I do this because I want to make sure that when they play, they will never have a crushing, negative experience that discourages them from doing more playing. That never happened to me, but I have seen it happen to many people, some of them fellow music school students.

Something very different happened to me. My grandmother was my first teacher, and every year she had a recital. I was always the best (big fish in a very small pond), and I felt alienated. Playing was easy. But I think the other kids thought I was the "talented freak".

With the next teacher, it was the same. I was not the best the first year, but after that I was, and I was last. I also remember that it was all girls, except for me, and it was not like that in any other part of my life. It was getting a lot harder because I was always last. That meant having to wait patiently while every other student went before me, and my teacher did NO work at all on memory. My ear was always very strong, but I had no formal theory at all, so it was all instinct and finger memory.

At college my first teacher was astounded at what I had never been taught. (Sound familiar?) He asked me if I mapped out the harmonic structure of what I played, and I had no idea what he was talking about. So as a teacher I am a FANATIC about analysis. I did not correct that hole in my knowledge until my early 20s, and later playing in a small jazz group was what nailed down my knowledge of chord structure, voicing, etc., not ANYTHING I learned in college theory, which was totally useless.

I agree.

I suggest to every student to always have three things ready to play for anyone, at any time. I don't push people to play, but I do press them to have three things nailed, in case an opportunity presents itself and they want to jump on it. However, I tell them that it is fine to use music, that the goal is to play well, to feel good about playing well, and that playing from memory is the "icing on the cake".

I also demonstrate several things, from memory, that have enough technical gymnastics that they really can't be played with music, to show that there is also a real reason to play from memory. I guess what I am pushing is flexibility, which is also why I may flip from Mario music to Guaraldi tunes to Kabalevsky to preludes from the WTC, all in the same lesson.

And thanks for the understanding about my grumpy mood. I'm not sure young teachers realize just how great we feel when things work and we are appreciated, or how awful it is when we work with parents and students who have unbearable attitudes and show rudeness that is beyond belief.

I'm glad you did not choose to go PM, I'm learning a lot from your posts. I like the fact that you explain thoroughly why you agree or disagree, that's why I find both points of view enlightening!
I've read in Mr C. Chang's book that you are to practice as if you were performing, I don't remember how he elaborates on that, but your input would be higly appreciated.

Thanks.

I require both the spring recital and the holiday performance party. I've had several kids try to opt out, but when I tell them that it is required, they do it...and do it well!

Interesting posts so far...

I used to make recitals mandatory for everyone. But then I got some very very very BAD students. I wouldn't want them to perform anywhere, for the sake of audience sanity! If these students are not playing well (due to lack of practice, apathy, stupidity, and a host of other issues) then they don't DESERVE to play in recitals, period!

And then I got some "aging" students. When they were young, they were fearless and LOVED recitals. But as they get older, they are increasingly more self-aware. Recitals have become painful for them. It's like every wrong note leaves a scar on them. I really don't want to cause permanent damage to their ego, so I make recitals optional for these older students.