How To Prepare For A Performance
You’ve done all the hard work. You’ve practiced your piece more times than you can count. You’ve worked out all the details with your teacher. Now what? Just like learning a new piece, learning how to perform is a skill that takes practice!
How can you push past those performance jitters and have the best experience possible?
Have as many “informances” (informal performance) as you can. Give a mini performance to a relative on FaceTime, give a pre-dinner concert for your family, or perform for a friend (or your whole class)! Getting used to performing in front of people will help ease those nerves when it comes time for the concert. If you’ve never played in front of anyone other than your teacher, of course you’ll be nervous stepping in front of a crowd for the first time! However, the more you play in front of people, the easier it will be.
And if you can’t find people to play for? Be your own audience member! Record yourself, and watch it back to see how you’re presenting yourself from an audience member’s point of view (Do you look confident? Or do you make a face when you make a mistake? Do you remember to bow at the end of the performance?).Play in different environments. Is the concert going to be outside? Practice outside! Is it going to be in a hall that echoes? Try practicing in your bathroom to get closer to that echoing sound! We sound different in different settings, so we want to try to recreate that sound before the concert. If you get used to hearing yourself in different environments, it won’t be such a surprise on the day of the concert!
Keep listening to your concert piece. Even after you’ve mastered a piece and have gotten it “performance ready”, there are still so many benefits to listening to your piece. Listening helps you to completely internalize your part, so that you can be confident that you won’t lose your place during a performance. If you’re singing or playing a piece that requires accompaniment, listening to your piece will help you get used to hearing your part with the accompaniment. And the more you listen, the more details you’ll hear that you can add in your own playing!
Practice run-throughs and being in the NOW. When we practice and make a mistake, we stop, draw attention to it, and practice it again and again in order to correct it. However, in a performance, we have to do the exact opposite (forget about the mistake and KEEP GOING!)! It’s important to get out of practice mode in preparation for a performance, and instead practice staying in the now! Mistakes happen, but we have to move forward and not let them get in the way of the rest of our performance. And remember, YOU know the piece better than anyone in the audience, and are likely the only one who noticed the mistake.
Have FUN and know that everyone is rooting you on! Know that you have done all the work that you can do to prepare, and now you get to share the music that you have worked so hard on. Everyone in the audience is rooting for you!
