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Hi. I'd like to begin recitals and festivals for my small studio but don't really understand how most teachers do it. How far ahead do students begin selecting and preparing work? Don't they get tired of playing the same pieces? How much focus goes to the selected pieces during weekly lessons? What do you do when they have polished the piece and there is still some much time before the event? Forgive questions, but the performances are new to me. Joyce

Hi Joyce,

I used to allow about 8 weeks or so for my students to prepare, depending on the student. Use your own descretion as some students will require much more time than others. I usually helped them select music that was a little more challenging than our usual lesson assignments, but not so challenging as to cause them to stress out in their preparation. For the first several lessons, we devoted the entire lesson time to their recital pieces. If I felt they were doing well on thier recital pieces, I would begin to add in some of their usual lesson assignments, but we still spent most of the lesson time on their recital pieces. The last few lessons were mainly dedicated to working out the details and to memorization. I always encouraged my more advanced students to participate in duets with other students or family members. Since my recitals were held at my church, I used to give the final lesson before the recital there so that the students would feel at ease with the surroundings and on the instruments. I found that students rarely tired of their pieces and according to their parents, most continued to play them long after their recital performances. I haven't taught in some years, but this always worked well for me. My goal was to keep the recital (or 'piano party' as I sometimes called them) as much fun and stress-free as possible for everyone involved. I'm sure other teachers can offer more ideas. Good luck to you!

Lyn

In a festival situation, it's possible that you would start working on the pieces months in advance. Rather than working on a piece continuously for so long, it's better to leave it for a few weeks, and then come back to it a couple weeks or maybe a month before the performance. Otherwise, you'll both be bored. It might not be possible to leave the piece entirely, but less time could be devoted to it in lessons. Of course, this all depends on how fast individual students learn and whether they bother to practice or not.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for replies. Ages range from 5 yrs. to 14 yrs. Repertoire not too serious yet - Beethoven Sonatina Gmaj, WTC Prelude Cmaj #1, Sousa's Liberty March, Vandall preludes, Bergmuller Ballade, Bach minuets. Some practice regularly, some don't. I like the suggestion to come back to the pieces occasionally - already doing that with Turkish March. I think my greatest problem is how to keep lesson material on track and still produce polished recital pieces. I'm greatly interested in how others balance it.

Hi Joyce,
Here is what our piano teacher does.

Everyone gets new music in June, right after syllabus exams and end of the year recitals. The upper division students get all of their study pieces at once, even tho they won't start working on everything right away. The kids who know they will be performing in a master class or festival in the fall can begin to learn those pieces over the summer. The other music gets attention throughout the school year in time for whatever festival or competition is coming up. Everything is at performance level by spring for syllabus.

Our teacher has workshops (piano parties) in her home each month. Her students meet in groups by age. Even we adults have a group. Everyone plays for eachother. It's a chance to practice in front of a group before the real recital or performance. There is always food and the kids think this is fun. Heck, we adults think it's fun too.

Regarding how far in advance to begin a piece, when my daughter finished her Chopin months before syllabus, she was told to "put it on the back burner" for awhile. But like others have discovered, once she had it polished, she played it all the time anyway. It didn't seem to hurt her at the exam to have played it for so long. On the other hand, she had 2 months to prepare Scarlatti for the Baroque festival but put off learning the last section of the piece til 2 weeks before the competition when I asked her if she was just going to leave off the ending. :rolleyes: Maybe it's better to start early just in case.

About 15 minutes of each lesson is devoted the theory, the remaining 30 to 45 minutes is spent working on the pieces.

Thanks for your response. Are you referring to intermediate/advanced students with the statement regarding lesson time? If not, then what happens to introduction of new concepts and techniques? Regarding finished repertoire, my biggest problem is students who have polished the piece but for that one nagging spot, regardless of how hard we work on it. Is this common? How do you handle it?

Joyce:

I don't get on with most piano teachers so I'm probably biased. Nonetheless I've one piece of advice if your pupils are going to perform. Please permit differences in individual ideas and musicianship to come out. I attended a recital by a neighbourhood teacher's pupils - lots of them - dozens - she must be raking in a fortune but that's not the point. They all played with deadly accuracy and played difficult pieces with no wrong notes. However once I'd heard one I'd heard the lot. They were all deadly serious, they all used their hands and fingers in the same way and struck the notes in the same way (whatever the piece); when a piece was played by two people it was phrased in the same way everywhere. The odd one who allowed a bar or two of non-conformity to intervene was verbally chastised afterwards in front of the others.

I felt sorry for the pupils - quite a few had real talent - but what's music all about for heaven's sake ? Not that, anyway.

Ted, yes, you are absolutely right. I hadn't realized it, but that was what was bothering me about the many snippets of recital pieces you can find on teacher's websites. I was thinking it was a failing on my part not to have instituted that deadly precision in my students, but now I have to admit, I don't care for it. Thank you for your insight.

Hi Joyce, The lessons that I'm talking about are for intermediate/advanced students. There is 10 -15 minutes of theory at the beginning of the lesson (my daughter hates theory and lets the teacher know when her 10 minutes is up.) New concepts and technique are integrated into the second part of the lesson as they come up in the pieces each student is studying.

As far as those nagging spots that give your students trouble no matter how hard you work on them...if you find a solution, let me know.