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For these reasons, when I had only one adult student many, many years ago, I didn't want them to play on the recitals with the 8-15 year olds. Instead, I would encourage them to play for family/friends whenever they had visitors at their house, etc. If the adult student insisted, then fine, but I would never even suggest that they play on the recital.

But as soon as there are two adults, then it's a completely different story.

That being said, it's interesting (but not a surprise) how most adults would rather play for an audience of 100 than in their livingroom with 5 relatives (heck, I feel the same way).

My first teacher as a returning adult refused to let me play in the annual recital, as I was the only interested adult student. I felt so strongly that this opportunity was part of the learning cycle and it should not be prohibited that I changed teachers as a result. I would recommend that those teachers that have only one adult, or only one adult student who might be interested, to at least offer the opportunity to participate in the recital. I was not even told about it occurring until I asked, and then was told I would be the only adult, so I would not be allowed. I felt dismissed as a student with goals. IMHO, as always

Can you come to my next recital and tell me this right before I play? Also right after?

We obviously need a recital coach on call to give pep talks before we go out and perform. Also cheerleaders with pom-poms to shake - Give me and S! an A! an R! an A! What does it spell? SARA! SARA! SARA!

Sam

Ya, that's way too bad. My adult, in the beginning before more adults, always knew about the recitals and could certainly play if they had wanted to. But I never would have said they were required to. But this particular adult, before I had more, was 76 years old, had lessons every few weeks, and was doing it just for fun since she had her ancient Steinway at home in her living room.

My teacher has 20 students. The other students are 7 - 20 years old, the older the better players. The older students are soon-to-be music graduates. I'm 37 and I play like 10-years old kids. So besides being scared of playing in public I also feel embarrassed. I know there is no reason to feel this way, but I can't change my feelings. Battle of the brain and the heart

Anyway, I've attended in three recitals. First two were horrible. In my first recital I was so scared that I remember almost nothing about it. The second recital was little bit better, but my heart was pounding and hands were trembling and I made lots of mistakes.

I've always suffered from stage fright, not only when playing but also when speaking, even with larger group of friends. Because of this I finally asked a doctor to prescribe me beta blockers and they make a huge difference. I might feel embarrassed, but at least my hands are not trembling and my heart is not pounding, so I can play my piece smoothly, which makes me feel more confident.

I know lots of people don't wanna use medication, but for me it really works and reduces the stress significantly.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I felt quite good after the third recital (I took the beta blockers). I think I did well, it felt like a success and I was happy about it.

I would never ever comment or judge on whatever folks have to do to get through their public performances.

I've had to do 6 of these, and it is the least favorite aspect of music lessons. Each time it gets a little better, but it is still nerve-wracking.

One decision that I have made is that if it gets to the point where I need to take some kind of medication to get through it I will retire from public performances.

A well-known dirty secret among classical performers - not just soloists, but also ensemble players (orchestral, chamber etc) - is that a significant number of them take beta-blockers prior to performing. Not all take them for every performance - many of the orchestral players only take propranolol if they have important solos in the pieces they're playing (e.g. the clarinet in Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, the solo violin - always played by the concert master/leader - in Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade etc).

For professional classical musicians, that is their livelihood. For us adult amateurs, well, that's up to us.

Why do we (want to) perform in public?

I'm not quite sure that I want to; my teacher likes her adult students to play something at her twice a year musicales, as part of the overall education process.

I will admit that when things go well (as they did last month) there is quite a rush right after I'm done. However the two weeks of anxiety that precede this I sometimes think is not worth it.

For me the feeling of success is important to get over the stage fright. I've failed so many times because of being afraid to speak or play that it restricts me doing things. When using beta blockers I can get good experiences of playing or speaking in public without shaky hands or trembling voice. I hope that eventually I'll be able to perform without the pills.

I've used beta blockers before and they are very helpful. And educational.

A lot of the anxiety part of performance anxiety seems to be rooted in some of the physiological effects that feed back upon themselves. Physiological effects cause mental anxiety ("What's happening to me? I'm going to mess up!") that feed back into the physiology.

Beta blockers interrupt that feedback loop, but, what's more, they also let you identify the components of that. "Oh, that heart in my throat feeling isn't sheer terror... it's elevated heart rate... or holding your breath... or light-headedness. Well, I can deal with that."

As a result, I have now found that, not using beta blockers, when I sense my body starting to experience some of those effects, I'm less caught up in fear around the physical sensation, which, in turn, dampens the escalating effect of the feedback.

So, yeah, it's totally possible to benefit from them short term and eliminate them or reduce their use long term.

I haven't done any recitals in my almost 3 yrs of lessons as an adult (55), but am about to play at a group lesson today @ 1:30. I have done this only one other time, but I had the song down cold and it went well. This song I am going to play is at my current level, but I'm not even close to having it polished. It's tricky, and a little more difficult than the first song I played in front of strangers. And I am nervous, but feel I need to get over this nervousness so I can at least try one recital. I feel if I do one, and hopefully if it goes well, it will help me to play in front of people in the future. I'm an RN and work in a hospital that has a baby grand in the lobby that anyone can play and I'm hoping to one day sit down and play something halfway decent without embarassing myself in front of anyone I know who may happen by! Sometimes I imagine myself sitting there doing this and then the mistakes begin!! Arrgh! But my plan for today is to just go slow, if I hit the wrong key, oh well, just move on and get through it. My teacher said everyone will hit a wrong note, so don't worry!! Hmmm, we'll see!! Wish me luck!

I am not a beginner, but have not done very many recitals as, during my music studies, my teachers did not offer any (we went the exam route, so my only real performances were in front of my teachers and examiners).

I now teach piano (around 4 - 5 years of teaching) and I am currently overcoming my performance anxieties so that I can play for my students instead of having to send them off to youtube for examples of the things I want them to listen to.

I am innately pretty shy (although teaching has conquered that quite a bit!), and also am an artist (meaning I can create my art in private and send my paintings out into the public world to perform for me whilst I hide away at home!).

So, just recently, I made myself play at my students' recital. The piece I chose to play was a quite fast, 3 (or so) minute Baroque piece. Not hard, but needing clarity and it had a number of trills (also needing clarity and agility!). I chose it because I love it and because I wanted my students and their parents to hear and experience it too.

Just before I played (at the end of the recital), the room got really cold. Someone had left the door open and there was no opportunity to get up to close it and turn the heater up because I was presenting my students' pieces. So my fingers were cold and stiff, and then I temporarily forgot how the piece began, and then I started to panic about all the free time I was going to have after I had performed (as my students would politely not return for lessons after they had heard me play).

Well, I played and, really, it was just about the worst performance I have ever done! My fingers wouldn't work, the trills disappeared, I hit about 1000 wrong notes, the page turns were a disaster .. and on it goes! It couldn't have been worse if the piano had fallen apart under me!

But ... no-one cared! I got such an enthusiastic round of applause afterwards! Everyone really loved it! They didn't notice the mistakes, they just heard the beauty of the music (the piece itself - not me), and I think that my many weeks of my getting to know and love (adore!) the music came through so much more strongly than all the cr..p of the nerves, anxiety, being the only adult, and all that rubbish that gets in the way of sharing the music.

_____

On a final note, I did a second recital shortly afterwards (part of my effort to continue to play in public), and was one of two adults in a group of about 25 children. And being the only (or just about the only) adult really DOES NOT matter! We played, we shared, we made mistakes, we were all just human beings of various experiences. The children felt important because they had adults in the group, and I enjoyed and learned from all of them as they, I hope did from me.

The music is the important thing - at a recital everyone is just having a musical conversation with each other.

Why any adult would voluntarily (OK, not always voluntarily.....) subject himself to something that isn't essential but is very stressful, is an interesting question .

I'd never dreamt of performing in front of an audience all through my student years - neither did the vast majority of my school friends who played musical instruments. But we all did music exams - which was taken for granted, just like school exams if you went to school.
However, knowing what I do now, if I was doing exams today, I'd take propranolol without any qualms. I never felt that I did myself justice in any of the piano exams I did as a student while at high school (- once, I even started a scale on the wrong notes when my mind went completely blank, and I just hit the first keys I saw through the fog....). But doing exams in front of one person (the examiner) is nothing like as stressful as performing in front of several people, all watching you.

So, why am I playing monthly recitals now? Because I'd finally found a way to do so that was not so stressful that it outweighed the benefits I obtained from doing them - seeing people's faces light up when they hear a lovely melody or beautiful harmonies or an exciting rhythm, or because they recognized a tune which they'd only heard before on a ringtone or TV commercial or movie, and coming up to me afterwards to tell me they'd been inspired to start (or restart) piano lessons by hearing my recitals.

No programs, no commitment to play any specific piece (more than once, I left out complex pieces I'd prepared because I didn't feel like I was in a good enough form to play them that evening), no formality, and my audience are mostly non-musical. I would never play in front of advanced pianists or teachers, because I would always subconsciously think they were comparing me unfavorably to concert pianists they'd heard before, and my nerves would then get the better of me.

Are you suggesting here that the answer is different for adults than for children or teens?

One difference I can think of, is that parents may require children to do things that are stressful for the child -- and so the question of deciding if these things are essential gets pushed to the parents' reasoning rather than the child's reasoning. Or maybe parents are wrong about the things they force their children to do, that adults wouldn't force themselves to do?

Just thinking out loud here, and curious what others think.

I'm fascinated by the "I want my teacher to take me as seriously as s/he takes her child students / I don't want to do the same thing as the child students" push-me/pull-you that I see in some discussions. So I'm wondering whether the point you raise here is an "adults are different" aspect, or a "people of whatever age are similar" aspect.

You can do it!

Also, mistakes happen, but that's okay!

What I meant is that adults force children to do stuff they wouldn't do if they had the choice - I've seen it happen when kids have obviously been forced by pushy parents and teachers to play in competitions and festivals. The results have occasionally been quite traumatic for the kids.

When I was a kid and learning piano, playing in recitals never cropped up. If it had been compulsory - as with some teachers here, who make all their students play recitals - the only option I would have was to quit, and quit I would.

Why indeed... What if they actually see it as essential?

I subject myself to a lot of stress due to weekly lessons voluntarily. I do it because it feels essential to me while it objectively may not be so. Some people probably feel the same way about recitals.

Besides, so often do we read even here that one cannot learn to play without mental suffering? That it cannot always be pleasant. That to learn an adult must be like the kids if they really want to get somewhere? I don't believe all that, but many do...