I’m sure, as a child, I gave my piano teacher (and my mother) full-blown heart attacks every recital season. Not intentionally… but accidentally… whenever I played piano in public.
I was a nervous performer and during a recital, those nerves created my “lets get this over with” speed performances. As I’d return from a recital stage to my place in the audience, breathless with adrenaline, I’d catch the wide-eyed “wowza” glance my mom and teacher would share.
I remember my mom once telling me she thought I was literally going to slip off the keyboard and fall to the floor.
Fast forward 25 some-odd years and I am now extremely thankful for those experiences as a child. I am now able to completely empathize with my nervous, speedy performers and can share with them the 5-point check list I taught myself to follow as I gained more and more performance experience.
Using the 5 strategies below, my nervous students are learning to slow down and your nervous students can too!
The Five-Point Checklist For Speedy Recital Performers
At this time of year, we’re all starting to think about recital preparation, and an important aspect of recital preparation involves prepping our speedy performers. We’ve all watched piano students perform at an unintentional “mach-3 speed”, and we’ve all wished there was a way that we could help them slow down, be in the moment and share the musicality that we hear during their lesson times.
Today we’re sharing a five-point checklist to guide your piano students as they get up to perform at your next recital:
1. The “Five Minutes Before” Body Check
As your students are waiting for their turn to perform, teach them to do a “body check”. Instruct them to assess their heart-rate, their breathing, their muscle tenseness and their general well-being. Becoming self-aware in advance of their turn to perform, helps students avoid that sudden jolt of adrenaline and nerves when they reach the piano bench and become uber-aware of it all… all at once. Remind your students to consciously relax their shoulders, take deep breaths and engage in positive self-talk.
2. The Piano Piece Announcement
During recitals I always have my students announce the piece they will be playing, as it gives them the opportunity to steady themselves on stage before they perform. Students should learn to stand tall, smile, and then speak in a clear and confident voice. The few seconds it takes to announce a piece gives their body a chance to adjust to the “on stage situation”, and get friendly feedback from their audience.
3. The “Take Five” Bench Moment
After your students take to the bench, teach them to put their hands in their laps and take five seconds to just sit still. During this time I encourage my students to mentally play through the first five measures of their piece, to locate their starting position with their eyes, and to picture playing the final note of their piece. All of this happens before their hands touch the keys. This mental “run-through” helps calm your students, and prevents a rushed start to the performance.
4. Learn To Listen To Held Notes
In university I had a fabulous piano professor who really liked to talk about the energy that was contained inside “held notes”. While this is a fairly abstract concept that is often lost on young students, the idea of really listening to held notes is a great way to slow down speedy performers.
Teach your students to “turn on their ears” every time they play a held note in their performance piece. It’s a simple way to encourage the aural awareness that nudges them into a steadier performance.
5. The Landmark Breath
The final strategy that I teach my piano students is what I call the “landmark breath”. There’s nothing worse as a performer than knowing you’re playing too quickly, but not knowing how or when to adjust your speed.
Landmark Breaths are little performance moments where your students assess their playing. In these moments they can re-group and slow down if their performances are starting to get away on them. Because Landmark Breaths are pre-planned and predictable they do not interrupt the flow of the performance.
Choose places in your students music that make sense (section breaks, the end of a phrase etc.) and write these Landmark Breaths right onto their music. In these moments your students learn to breathe and begin playing at a slower tempo if needed. As your students prepare, they’ll also practice adding these “re-set moments” into their performance.
How Do You Slow Speedy Performers?
Much of what causes a less-than-desirable recital performance is the result of nerve-induced speed. By teaching your piano students to follow this 5-point checklist, you’ll also be helping them to improve their chances at delivering a performance that results in a positive experience and positive future performances.
We’d love to hear from you! How do you help your speedy performers to slow down? Share in the comments below.
One of the things I do is have regular group classes in my home with all my students together (no parents). We practice performing for each other about once a month – in the more comfortable setting of my living room. The students can get “do-overs” on the introduction of their song or even the performance of their song if necessary. This means that when they finally get to the competition or recital stage they have had lots of practice at performing, and usually it is not the first time they have performed that piece for other people in a “nervous” setting! I can’t believe the difference it has made in their performance success.
Great idea Amy! I’m sure that extra effort you put in to organize this makes a huge difference in getting rid of those nerves 🙂 Thanks for sharing
Great idea Amy! My question is, how do you get your students together? My kids play soccer, go here and there, and getting them together at one time is an enormous challenge.
My parents know from the start of the year that these classes are a mandatory part of my studio. I provide them with the dates for the whole year in September – with classes in Oct,Nov, Jan,Feb, Apr, and May.
There is always someone who backs out last minute due to family commitments, dance recital, a part time job, etc but I just take it in stride and emphasize the importance of them coming the next time. I have enough students that I offer one on a Saturday morning and one one a Monday evening each month- so generally if one doesn’t work the other will.
Thanks for sharing these great points . I’m relating to older students who have experienced train wrecks in rapid piano playing! We slow the pace with metronome practice, along with piano rhythm software I use. Plus, mentally counting silently all the sub-beats per measure keeping a steady pace and enjoying the dynamcis. Visual cues on sheet music and breathing is a must. Positive input from their peers at practice helps remind them to enjoy the ride of performing with steady rhythm. They own their song with a smile and sometimes saying “oopsie” in their mistakes but mentally staying connected to their music rhythmically.
This is a great point LadyD – often adult students are the ones who struggle the most with performance nerves. Thanks for sharing your great suggestions!
Thanks so much for this- my favorite- “listen to held notes”. It’s not just for slowing the possible nervous tempo- but it is a fabulous way even for more advanced players to understand that the shape of a phrase continues right through held notes. Most students dont have a concept of this and when they begin to understand it, that is when they can make a line continuously cantabile. I also plan on using the “take five” and perhaps even the “landmark breaths” ideas. Our first recitals are in two weeks. THANK YOU!!
Karen
Hi Karen – I know – I loved that piano prof. He was so delightful in teaching musicality and expression. It really helped me as a singing student too as this is also important when singing. Good luck in 2 weeks! Hope your recitals go well 🙂
I love that one, too – especially for my voice students, I call it ‘owning the moment’. It applies to any instrument really, using those pauses/held out notes to create tension within the delivery of a piece – to draw people in to see what you are going to do next. OWN IT! Don’t be afraid of it! Deliver it with confidence – even silence – and use it to your advantage, both with nerves and the delivery/communication of your piece. Makes a HUGE difference when they get that, especially my older/teenage students!
Thank you very much! Not only is this good advice for students, but for me as well!!
Hi Mary – I still do this “check list” when I perform… that nervous child is still there deep inside 😉 Have a great teaching week!
I talk to my students about how an adrenaline surge can distort their sense of time. Sometimes I will ask a student why they played their selection so fast — and they are often convinced that they did not play any faster than usual. Having a variety of tempos one can perform at can give the performer more control in these situations.
It’s true – this was my “saving grace” as a young piano student… I *could* play my pieces at warp speed… so even though I didn’t intend to when performing… I was still able to get through them successfully 🙂 My teacher was great at getting me to also practice extremely slowly in an attempt to help me find a happy medium. Having the ability to play at a variety of tempos is important – thanks for sharing!
Great ideas! I teach in the students’ homes, so we had a concert for their stuffed animals.
Hi Mary Anne – what a sweet idea – love it! Thanks for sharing 🙂
It is practice practice and more practice doing these steps. In my bi-annual studio classes, this recital format is used and practiced. I also have a big poster of kids – on a shelf. I tell students to talk to the audience in the balcony.
Great suggestion Diane – thanks for commenting!
I have also used playing for stuffed animal-audience members. It’s pretty funny how even that changes the nerves! But I really like the idea of listening to the held notes. That is a new thought to relate to the students that I’ll be trying for sure. Thanks, as usual!
Hi Linda – glad you found some helpful suggestions 🙂 Okay I too am off to find some “critical stuffies” to get those nerves going LOL.
Perform, perform, perform. And play it at a faster tempo at times to see where the pitfalls are. I like the idea of performing for the stuffed animals. This will be my go to trick this year.
Hi Elizabeth – yes… nothing beats practicing performing. The experience gained “on the stage” is huge. Thanks for commenting!
I’d add to the first point to tap their piece at the planned performance tempo silently on their knees. It can help to practice finding the tempo they want when their heartbeat is already elevated.
Great one Nicola – thanks!
I just started doing group events in my home in part to give my students more experience performing in front of others. We had our first one this last Sunday and it was a big hit. I had three groups come at separate times as I don’t have a huge space. I had similar ages and levels come together.
One young and somewhat shy student say she didn’t want to perform, but I convinced her to come anyway just to watch. By halfway through she piped up that she now wanted to play. I think watching others her age perform gave her the confidence she needed because she could see that she can play the same way they did.
We also did group rhythm exercises where each student played a different rhythm on a different instrument all at the same time. And for the last 30 or 40 min we played a bunch of games from the Teach Piano Today Games Club. The kids went nuts for them! At the very end I handed out award certificates for each student acknowledging the strongest aspect of their playing.
I’m looking forward to the December recital to see if a few of these events will help the students with their performances. I will also start using these 5 performance tips, such great tools! Thanks for the post.
Sounds like great fun Marah – so glad that your students are enjoying the PianoGameClub.com games 🙂 Love the group events idea you’ve started – I can see nothing but great things coming from it!
Great suggestions! I always have my students practice announcing their pieces before they perform. I actually haven’t ever had a student rush through their piece at a recital, but I remember when I was a teenager I was playing a duet of Pachabel’s Canon and had the primo part with 32nd notes in it. My partner started the piece off with whole notes. When it came time to perform she started off MUCH faster than we had ever practiced! I was like, “Aughh! Well, here goes!” I remember my fingers were flying and thankfully I was able to keep up! It was a relief when we were done!