When I was new to teaching, the mere mention of “Recital Day” used to send me into fits of nausea. So much work, so much stress, so much preparation, so much… on the line.
Looking back now it seems quite silly. What was all the fuss about? I mean, what regular person doesn’t know how to plan a massively successful party for large groups of children and all of their friends and family? 😉 (Joking of course!)
All kidding aside, recital season can be one of the busiest times in a piano teacher’s year.
And so today we’ve rounded up Teach Piano Today’s most valuable recital advice into four success categories. Read the posts belonging to each category and you’ll be on your way to a brilliant recital!
Four Keys To Piano Recital Success …
We’ve blogged quite a bit about recitals in the past… so we thought having the advice, strategies, printables, and activities all in one place would be helpful. Hoping for a fantastic recital? Follow along to form your “recital success” plan…
Key #1: Enthusiastic Participants
An important step in ensuring a successful recital is to secure enthusiastic participation from your piano students. Whether or not you make recitals mandatory, you’ll want to be sure that both students and parents understand the benefits that arise from piano recital participation.
Required Reading #1: In this post we share the Top 12 reasons why every family in your studio should participate in your recital. Share it with your studio parents!
Required Reading #2: Sometimes teens can be difficult to convince to perform… they’re “too cool” or “too embarrassed”. If you have a lot of teens in your studio and you want to ensure their enthusiasm, check out this post on making recitals fun for teenagers.
Key #2: Prepared and Proud Participants
Getting your piano students ready for a recital is a looooong project that can leave everyone feeling a bit burnt out. To keep motivation high and pieces polished, check out these posts.
Required Reading #1: Piano Recital Bootcamp – A fun “circuit-training” activity that preps your piano kids for an “anything can happen” recital scenario.
Required Reading #2: Piano Recital Task Cards – Print these out, send them home with your students and ensure bigger bows, louder voices and speed control.
Required Reading #3: 75 Ways To Keep Students Excited About Their Recital Piece – After weeks and weeks of work on the same performance piece, things can start to feel a bit…stale… until you pull these 75 strategies out and have a blast! These teacher-submitted ideas are a great way to keep practice motivation high.
Required Reading #4: What To Do If A Student Isn’t Ready? – If you’re in the final weeks of preparation and you know that a student isn’t going to be recital-ready, here are 6 ways you can still have him happily and successfully participating.
Key #3: Unique Ideas
Sometimes even the smallest addition or change to your regular recital routine can make a world of difference. Whether you want to completely overhaul your piano recital and turn it into an huge event or you just want to add a little something extra, check out the great ideas below.
Required Reading #1: Here’s a post filled with 6 unique ideas that don’t take a lot of time to plan but can really add something exciting to the event. I’ve done all 6 and they worked beautifully!
Required Reading #2: If you have trouble keeping audience members in their seats until the very end of the recital (and, if this is a major pet peeve of yours like it is mine) then you might want to add these ideas to your recital to keep it “great till the last drop”!
Required Reading #3: If you’re ready to hop into something more involved to make for a memorable recital then check out this amazing resource of teacher-submitted recital ideas! We’ve opened our IdeaSwap to share all of the creative recital ideas teachers have submitted to us over the past years.
Key #4: Attention To Detail
All of those “little things” that you sweat over and spend time working on really DO matter! Here’s some posts to help you with the “behind the scenes” aspects of planning a recital.
Required Reading #1: Wondering what to say when you have a captive audience and are ready to begin? Here’s a template you can customize to deliver the “Perfect Recital Welcome Speech”.
Required Reading #2: Did you know that your spring recital is an ideal place to work on your retention and re-registration rates? This post shares 10 ways you can actually use your recital as a way to retain students and ensure a healthy re-registration rate for the fall.
Required Reading #3: The way in which you deal with students who have stage fright or performance anxiety is a very important detail that you may not have thought of preparing for! Here’s the Piano Teacher’s Guide To The Stage Fright Monster... know how to spot it and what to do!
And Finally… The Ultimate Advice From Our Community!
We want to hear from you! In the comments below, share one piece of your own “ultimate advice” for piano recital success. We want your creative ideas, your “don’t forget to do this” tips, your “make sure you always” advice… anything you’ve learned from your recital-hosting experiences.
Benita says
This is awesome!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I’ve read and printed out every recital blog post I could find of yours lol. June will be my first recital for my new and growing studio. Nervous but excited about it! Looking forward to reading this post later today 🙂
Andrea says
Hi Benita! So exciting that you’re prepping for your first recital 🙂 We hope that this post is helpful as you plan.
Susan says
I’m in the midst of recital planning, and I’ve already opened several of these links in new tabs — thanks! One thing I noticed a lot of last recital was several audience members on their smartphones during the recital. I mean browsing online — not talking. Any ideas for how to (gently) discourage this? Or would it not bother you?
Andrea says
Likely a tough battle Susan 😉 I think I would ignore it personally… and hope that my students’ performances will be more interesting than what’s on-screen. Plus.. most parents take pictures and videos on their phones so it would be a tough announcement to make work/stick I think (unfortunately!)
Karen says
My recital is 4 weeks from Saturday and I’ve used some of your past ideas so I am looking forward to reading all of these this weekend to refresh my mind so my students will be in tip top shape!
Andrea says
Best of luck with your recital Karen! Enjoy!
Carla says
Thank you for all the wonderful recital ideas! This spring, my studio recital will be at our local piano store, and they are going to set up two grand pianos on the stage in the performance area. This will allow us to present a concerto and some duo piano works. The program will also include two selections for two pianos/eight hands: Over the Rainbow and Don’t Stop Believin’, arranged by Melody Bober. These two pieces have generated a lot of excitement and extra practicing among some of my middle and high school students.
Andrea says
Sounds lovely Carla! 2 pianos 8 hands is definitely a show-stopping moment 🙂
Mary Helen says
I always try to remind my students to take time when they end a piece. I’ve seen quite a few over the years who stand up as soon as they play the last note.