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My teacher asked me if I would like to play at a recital, and I am planning on it. I will probably be one of the few adults there playing, but I think it will be a good opportunity. If nothing else, I can remind myself to not take myself so seriously if I fall on my face.

I have been playing for about 6 weeks now, so my repertoire is somewhat limited.

I am thinking of:

Romance - Heinrich Wohlfahrt
Little Star - Carl Czerny

Feeling a little fearful, but mostly excited.

Yeah! I am so glad that you are taking advantage of this opportunity---- yes, you will be fearful and also excited That is how I have felt with all instructor-related recitals. BUT it is a great experience, and it does get easier with each time; I can equate it with diving off the high board--easier each time you dive.

As long as you are excited! 😃 Nothing destroys the artistic learning process more than stress and tension. Good luck!

My story, but it's illustrative because it was recent so I remember. I did an easier piece (for me) for my first recital. I messed up when I played, but pulled out of my mistakes! My teacher says you want your first recital to be a success (I'm glad I made errors, because the worst thing happened and I handled it. Also my hands shook like crazy!) So I'm doing a much harder piece for recital 2. I was the only adult. Many parents congratulated me for doing it, which I play piano for myself, but it was real nice of them. I know they could see my hands shaking. Uhhh, 4 minutes of torture that felt so good after! I wish I'd done recitals earlier in my piano adventure. Good for you you're starting right awsy! Hopefully your teacher puts you earlier in the program in case you get anxious. Prep way way beyond when you think you're ready. Your brain may empty out when you get up there. My teacher told me that and she was right!! I rehearsed everything with my teacher the week before. How to approach, what to think before playing, how to bow etc.

Good for you for deciding to do the recital. It actually can be rewarding and fun!

It helps to practice performing as much as possible. Play for your significant other, family, anyone you can. Mentally practice performing, acknowledge your audience, and play.

I agree with the Pianocat3, know your piece very well. Practice it slowly enough that muscle memory is not in control, so that you need to think about what comes next. That way you won't be running on autopilot in the actual performance. Also practice it faster than your performance tempo, so you can handle that if nerves drive you to play too fast. Most of all, relax and enjoy the experience.

I was one of three adults in the first recital, along with about 15 kids. I was also the very last performer before my teacher. I was nervous when I started, but settled once I was into my pieces. I made mistakes. No one cared but me, and I received nice applause, and congratulations from parents afterwards. I have done several recitals since then, and it gets easier over time. Just enjoy the experience!

When is your recital? I have one in May. After learning from past recitals, I will be practicing my songs to death.

the more you play recitals the more you will get over the stress of playing for others and that is such a handy thing to be able to do.

Keep in mind everyone was a beginner once, so do your best and have no recriminations. Best to look at the more advanced players as what you can become with time and practice.

Mine is in May on the 18th. I will certainly be practicing my songs a lot.

I always enjoy reading about people's recital experiences. I am doing one later in the year. (It will also be my first.) Best of luck! Let us know how it goes.

Wow! I can't even play for my iphone without getting nervous! lol Should be fun, have a great time.

Here's some advice on preparing for a recital that may help:

- Still try to work out any areas that are difficult. Your teacher can give you practicing suggestions on how to do this. But about a week prior to the performance, stop trying to fix the mistakes if they still exist. It is time to practice performing it. That means having a Plan B and Plan C. Plan A, of course, is to play that passage perfectly. But should that not happen, you need a Plan B of how you will keep the piece going in spite of the mistake that may happen.

Most of the time, this means just playing through the mistake without skipping a beat. If you practice playing through the mistake, it will be less noticeable and it will also not throw you off guard when you are performing. You will also most likely not be as disappointed in yourself because you planned for it, so it won't disrupt the rest of the piece as much.

- Practice starting from different places in the music. Often, you will want to try playing right after a difficult passage. This would be your Plan C or Plan D: if that passage doesn't go well, just skip to the next part. Being able to start from different places in your music is very helpful to avoid a complete train wreck. If you don't practice playing from different spots, however, it's difficult to do that in a performance.

- If you can, test out the piano you will be performing on. If at all possible, get a considerable amount of time on it, where you can play through your piece or pieces. If you won't have access to the piano except on the day of the performance, see if you can arrive early to test it out a bit. In his case, pick parts of your piece that demonstrate the things that you may need to adjust: if your piece has pedal, pick a spot where you have to use the pedal. If your piece has staccato, pick a section with that in there.

I recently accompanied a voice student for a competition that was held at a Steinway dealer. I played on a Steinway concert grand, but had no opportunity to test it out ahead of time. I'm accustomed to playing on a large piano, but the travel of these keys was not as far down as my own piano. The spacing of the keys seemed similar enough so that wasn't much of an issue, but the shallower travel to press the keys threw me a bit. I was surprised that this was what they had pianists competing on as well. Luckily, I wasn't playing anything technically challenging, but there was another song my student was going to do, and if I had to play that on this instrument without practice, it might have been a mess! Not to mention that the lighting in the room was very dim. Pianists were playing from memory, but since I was accompanying, I had my music and reading with all those shadows wasn't fun.

All that is to say, get as much practice time on the performance instrument as you possibly can. There are so many different factors that unless you are experienced in performing and know how to deal with them, they can really throw you off track even when you are fully prepared to play your piece well. Whatever variables you can reduce - the feel of the instrument, the sound of the room, the lighting, etc. - the better you will feel when it comes time to perform

- Lastly, do a lot of practice performances. Anyone you can coerce into listening, even if it's your family who has heard you playing this piece since you started learning it. Sit them down around the piano and do a mock performance, bowing afterwards and all. Try performing on a few different pianos and for different people, so that this isn't the first performance of this piece.

Hope this helps!

My teacher has me sit down and play thru cold every day for like two months beforehand. This may be because of stage fright or because I'm playing fairly advanced, long pieces or both.

She doesn't agree with practicing faster than ordinary temp. She thinks it becomes habit. So what I did was identify transitions in the piece where I can change tempo slower just in case I sped up or started at a fast clip by accident. You know, use some rubato, audience won't realize I changed tempo.

Strongly agree practice on the performance piano if you can, and get volunteer audience folks. I even escalated it, had them cough or fidget.

Great tips and advice from everyone. I'm never nervous around family and friends but I still get nervous just playing what I've been practicing for my instructor, never mind complete strangers. I have however always enjoyed that awkward jumping out of a plane, impending doom feeling. I used to do a lot of fighting in front of crowds and the energy of the room along with the actions of the sympathetic nervous system make for a truly surreal experience. Sometimes performing in front of others feels like an out of body experience. I've never done a recital but I hope to one day. Good luck with yours and I hope you get a good dose of adrenaline from it.

Did you land on a decision as to which piece to play? For my May recital I've decided on That's Amoré and a Beethoven sonatina. So one popular song and one classical. We hopefully have a group of adults at this recital, so they should appreciate the popular selection.

My recital is coming up on May 6, sooner than I want. My teacher wants me to play Chopin's posthumous c# minor nocturne, a bit of a stretch piece for me. I seem to be following a lot of the advice Morodiene gave above, though. I play it for everyone who will listen (and really, even for those who try not to) and in any piano store or setting where there is a piano and they let me touch the keys. I also have yet to play a recital and not make a mistake so playing through them and not stopping is very important. So far I have managed to do that but this piece is really making me nervous, to be honest.

As always, though, I'll be the oldest student by at least two decades and there is some amazing talent in the kids that play. That's always a lot of fun to see. Helps me be less nervous to see them do so well.

Jandz
Good luck with your recital. That nocturne is a beautiful piece. I played it at my recital last year.

I did decide which piece I am going to play, Romance by Heinrich Wohlfahrt. I had already know this was a piece I wanted to do for sure.

My teacher did not care for the other two alternative choices anyway. I am not sure I would have let that stop me though if those had been my first choices. But her reasons on those were:

Little Star (Czerny). Reason one, it's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I love that song, and there is actually a lot that can be expressed with it. Reason two was, the version I am doing is the melody is a little different at the end of the main phrase, and people might think I am making a mistake, especially since it ends on it.

Country Dance (Bartok). It ends on a dominant, which people are not used to hearing.

As far as playing what people want to or expect to hear, I will leave that back in the days when I used to be a gigging musician.

For practicing, in addition to playing it for others and on different pianos, I will be recording myself often. I tend to be fairly 'equal braned' but for some reason, when I record, it triggers my left brain (like performing can) and my left brain gets a little louder and tries to play it perfectly, which gets in the way, and messes it all up. There are many times where I just wish my brain would get along with itself.

Jandz - Good luck in your recital! That is a truly beautiful piece. Have fun with it.

I will also be playing the C# minor p.h. Nocturne soon as one of the pieces that I am playing for my ABRSM grade 7 exam. I played it in a recital a couple of years ago as well. There is so much heart in that nocturne you can do a lot with it.

I guess May is a popular month for recitals! I am not sure if I've ever played either of my pieces with actually zero mistakes, but it's generally as low as one mistake. I'll have to start inviting neighbours over to play for.

I'll play at a recital on Monday. I've been practicing my two pieces for a few months and my teacher has been quite happy with them. I had a piano lesson yesterday, and all of sudden one of my pieces was horrible according to my teacher. She told me that if I wish to play it at the recital I have to fix several things. I know that my teacher was angry yesterday, not because of me, but because of her mood she was quite harsh and yelled at me a bit, which made me very, very nervous about the piece. And now the piece is a train wreck - I can't play it at all anymore. I hit wrong keys, I get stuck, I pretty much fail at everything.

I guess I have to drop it and play only the other one. This is quite disappointing to me, because I have worked on the pieces for months and this came up now, couple of days before the recital. I hope that I won't mess up the other one too!