October

Studio News

October, 2006 --

The Recital Performance Conventions Performance Preparation & Nerves Preparing to Play Preparation Rules Managing Nerves Shy Students Handling Mistakes AMEB MusicCraft Liszt

Welcome to October’s issue of Studio News.

The recital will soon be here. This issue offers some suggestions about prepa

The composer of the month is the Hungarian born composer, pianist and teacher Franz Liszt. Liszt was a very talented and popular pianist and taught many students who also became famous as composers and performers.

The Recital

The studio recital, on 5^th November, is now only a couple of weeks away. I am pleased with the enthusiasm shown by many of the students. I am also grateful to parents for their support, which has shown in many ways, including helping students prepare pieces and offering to help out at the studio. Thank you everyone. You are a fantastic group.

There are still a number of students who have not replied to the invitation. I will accept a late RSVP and I encourage everyone to come. However, I do want to be sure to have awards and catering enough for everyone. Your reply will assist preparations.

At this stage, the event is looking like a smaller, friendly gathering, with 8 young students playing and about 20 guests. It will commence at 2:30 pm, with a short time for everyone to settle in. There will be a number of party games and about 45 minutes of performance time. Performances will be followed by an award presentation, with acknowledgement for every pianist. Organised activities will probably finish around 4:00 pm, with everyone welcome to stay afterwards to relax and socialise.

Performance Conventions

Normal performance conventions will be followed during the recital. This includes smart dress and self-presentation behaviours while playing.

Students will take turns in performing. They will leave their seats and move to the piano. They will make themselves comfortable on the piano bench and wait for the audience to settle. Most students will be playing more than one piece. At the end of each piece, they will rest their hands on their knees while the audience claps. They will then settle again, prepare and play their next piece. At the end of their last piece, students will stand and face the audience and bow, and hopefully smile. When the audience has finished clapping, the student will resume their seat among the audience.

After the recital, students need to be coached to accept compliments with a “thank you”. Please find something to compliment – a section you thought they played well, or the smile they gave, or their courage in performing.

Please don’t allow students to become involved in negatively criticising their performance, coming up with lists of things they thought they should have done better. Help them focus on the things they did well and tell them to talk about any concerns or criticisms with me during lessons. Hopefully this will not be an issue for anyone and they will all be proud of what they have done and for having a try. Playing publicly for the first time is a big thing that should be commended.

Performance

All students will feel nervous about performing, some very nervous and shy. This is normal and students need to understand, accept and deal with nerves. This means giving them an explanation about why they feel nervous and some useful ways to deal with these feelings.

Performance nerves are a normal emotion that everyone experiences – just like happiness, surprise or sadness. Performance nerves are the feelings we have in unfamiliar situations or situations that we can’t completely control, when we are aware of other people watching us. The mind reacts to the things we aren’t sure about by producing adrenaline. The adrenaline makes us feel jumpy, makes our heart beat faster and can make us forget to breath. All of this happens automatically. It doesn’t mean anything bad is going to happen. It isn’t a sign of how well we are going to perform or of what people think of us.

Performance nerves need to be dealt with by developing familiarity with the performance situation and by encouraging the mind and body to rest. Practicing performance skills and having plenty of experience helps reduce nerves over time. It gets easier to play in front of others, especially if performances involve fun or reward and lead to affirmation. Until then, we need to manage the feelings and the situation.

Preparing to play: Managing the situation involves being properly prepared to play. For more advanced players, preparation begins months before the recital, from the moment a piece is first analysed and learnt. Music needs to be understood fully and learnt accurately. For all players, it comes from really knowing the music you are going to play.

	Sing the music to yourself away from the piano.
	Know the music very well so you can start from any place.
	Know the last bar from memory so if you forget your place or get too nervous to keep playing, you can stop playing while sounding like you have actually finished.
	Think about what you want your audience to hear – what ideas do you want them to have after listening to your playing?
	Practice the music at slow and fast speeds, but always try to be expressive.

Important Preparation Rules: It is often tempting for students to practice a piece in the last minute, the day before or even on the day of a recital. This last-minute practice only tires the student and will lead to performances falling apart. From this first performance experience, I wish to establish some preparation rules.

Students are allowed to play as much piano as they wish the day before the recital. This playing should be for fun – no actual study. They should only play the recital pieces through twice. Once at performance speed and the second time as slowly as they can manage.

On the day of the performance, students are allowed to play the performance pieces twice (no more than this), just as the day before. The final practice should be very slow, and very careful. Please do not allow students to practice more than this.

The Performance Situation: Other aspects of the performance situation can be controlled and predicted. This prevents the more intense level of nervous feelings. Here are some guidelines:

	At home and in lessons, practice the entire performance, including sitting at the piano and bowing afterwards, so you know exactly what you are going to do.
	Choose your clothes before the day of the performance. Wear these in your practice the day before – so you know how they will feel when you are playing.
	Play for other people before playing in the recital.
	If possible, play the recital piano before the recital day. Find out everything you can about where the piano will be, what the lighting will be like, where your audience will be sitting, how much you will see of the audience, how you will know it is your turn to play, what the weather will be like, who else will be playing, etc.

Managing the feelings: The final issue is management of stress responses - dealing with those nervous feelings once they are there.

	Make sure you are not over-tired. Have a relaxing day the day before, doing quiet things that you enjoy doing – and try to have a good night’s sleep.
	Do not drink or eat stimulating foods for 24 hours – that includes caffeine, chocolate and lots of sugar.
	Spend time with your eyes closed, thinking about breathing slowly and deeply. See yourself performing and actually smile while you are picturing this. (The smile, even when it is pretend, tells your mind everything is going to be OK.)
	When you go up to the piano to perform, slow down. Close your eyes and put your shoulders back. Take a deep breath slowly and let it out. Relax. Be comfortable before you think about starting to play.
	Think about how the piece is going to sound when you start playing. Hear the music in you mind. Feel the piano keys under your fingers before playing the first note.

Helping very shy students: It is important that students understand that their feelings are normal and that they are not an indication of how well they will perform – they are just feelings. Be calm and soothing, lead them in relaxation and breathing.

Affirm your child’s courage for trying – while not ignoring or giving in to the feelings. Walk them through everything that will happen from the time they stand up to go to the piano to when they have finished. Focus on the fun and rewarding parts of the event. After the performance, praise them and mention specifically the things they did that were good, including self-management.

Making Mistakes: Nobody is perfect; we all make mistakes – and the best performers make mistakes in concerts and recitals. If you make a mistake while playing, take a deep breath and keep playing. If you can’t remember what to play, make it up – but try and keep the rhythm going. Try very hard not to stop.

The audience won’t mind if you make a mistake – and probably won’t even know that you have done it if you can keep the music and rhythm going. If you really can’t keep going, play the last bar and finish as if you meant to end then. Once you stop playing, sit at the piano for a moment before getting up and taking a bow. Probably nobody else will even know you made a mistake, so enjoy the applause for a job well done.

Final Words: I am hoping students will associate performing with being a lot of fun. Please use the information above to help your child prepare for the recital. On the day, bring a smile and lots of encouraging words for everyone.

The New AMEB MusicCraft Syllabus

AMEB has now launched the new music theory syllabus. It appears to be a very interesting course, presented as two modules for each grade. It offers a broad development of music theory skills in reading, composition, aural skills, music history and general knowledge. The course is to be used in weekly lessons over a year and has the option of a national exam to be sat in August. The modules cost $20 each, but the exam in August 2007 will be free. This works out to be half the cost of the former theory exams.

I would recommend this course to students 7 years of age and older, with or without sitting the exam. The content for musical development is comprehensive and well organised.

Franz Liszt

Born on 22^nd October 1811, in Hungary, Franz Liszt was surrounded by and loved music from the time he was a small child. He was a sickly child, and music gave him something to be absorbed in. Liszt’s father was a musician, playing piano and cello, and bringing other musicians into the home. Liszt enjoyed listening to these ensembles. He had his first music lesson when he was 6 years old, from his father.

From his early lessons, Liszt showed talent. He could sight-read many lines of music at once. After a few years, he travelled, as a prodigy, with is father during his father’s concerts.

At 12 years of age, Liszt moved to Paris, where he became a student to Carl Czerny – the only piano teacher Liszt ever had. (Czerny was also a very famous teacher and had been the student of Beethoven.) Liszt was very good at making up music while he was playing – improvising. He was liked as a person and became extremely popular in France.

When he was 19, Liszt met and befriended some other famous musicians – Chopin, Berlioz and Paganini (a violinist). Later, he also befriended Schumann and Wagner.

Paganini became Liszt’s role model – Liszt wanted to become the best pianist of his time, just as Paganini was considered to be on the violin. At 21, Liszt used variations on themes from Paginini’s compositions in his first great works for piano (Great Bravura Fantasy on Paginini’s La Campanella and Transcendental Etudes). He also took to closing himself away, playing the piano for many long hours at a time (10 to 12 hours), practicing scales, arpeggios, trills and technical puzzles. He achieved his goal, and is still recognised as one of the greatest pianists ever to live and is among the most important composers of the Romantic period, along with Chopin.

In 1848, Liszt stopped touring as a performer and focused on composing and teaching. He moved between Weimar (Germany), Rome and Budapest (Hungary). Among his students were Saint-Saens, Bizet, Smetana and Joseffy – each leaving their own mark on the world of music.

Liszt was one of the few composers to live a longer life, giving him 75 years to compose and develop as a pianist. Because of this, he wrote an enormous number of pieces across several musical periods, of many different levels, and produced some pieces that are so technically difficult and complicated that very few performers have ever been able to master them. One of these challenging pieces is Feux Follet (Transcendental Etude No.5).

Among Liszt’s best-known and loved compositions are the Hungarian Rhapsodies, which use gypsy music and folk dance themes - delightful and passionate. Another of his very well known and loved pieces is Liebestraume. He was the first to use a transition between contrasting themes, and recurring themes in one piece and pioneered the symphonic or tone poem (series of short pieces for orchestra). Liszt was also an author, writing many books about other composers, about musical styles and about how to play the piano.

Liszt was the first performer to use the term ‘recital’ to refer to his concert programme – a term we are still using. He was the first performer to play the entire programme from memory and to play with the piano in a position that allowed the audience to watch the hands and with the piano open so the sound could better reach the audience.

Annah-Valerie Hyrst (teacher)

Individual dynamics

Rouse Hill, NSW

Studio News

Last modified: January 16, 2008