Monday, January 5, 2009

Piano Recitals---What to Expect

By Georgia Reader

Many parents consider their children for piano lessons as they feel that it helps with their school studies and the fact is the piano is a universally popular instrument. Some, if not most piano instructors have piano recitals for their students annually or more often. Many parents love watching their child perform and view it is a benchmark ofr their child's activities and give it a sense of achievment.

Some students often wonder what a piano recital is and what happens during a recital. Well, a piano recital is a concert where students play pieces which they selected and practiced to play in front of an audience. This recital program gives students an opportunity to show how much they have improved during the previous month.

If you're a student, there is a lot of preparation that goes into your performance at the recital. One of the best things that you can do for your recital is practice for a few hours every day if possible. Even if you feel somewhat comfortable with your piece, keep on practicing as the song should flow easily.

In addition to practicing on the piano, you should run through the performance several times in your mind because visualizing the entire concert is very beneficial. Your subconscious mind doesn't have the ability to determine what reality is and what is visualized. This means that if you run through the performance successfully a number of times, your subconscious starts to believe that it's easy.

Most parents know that students performing in a recital is a great steppingstone toward self-confidence, yet there are a few that want to wait a couple of years to keep them from performing. Some worry that their child might make mistakes and get upset, but that might have something more to do with the parents' confidence in themselves instead! Fortunately, this does not happen too much as there is more of a problem of parents pushing a new student to perform right away.

See if your child is looking forward to performing in the recital. Are they overly nervous about performing in front of an audience? They may be needing some affirmation of their ability by their families so they begin to anticipate looking forward for their recital.

Some parents project an attitude that the recital is a big deal and that they should be nervous. They tell the child how many people will be watching and the child starts to become anxious. They think about what it would be like to make a mistake in front of so many people, so don't fall into that trap.

As a parent, just go with the flow. Talk about how it will be fun for them and encourage them as piano recitals offer the child a great opportunity to gauge their progress. They can see something happening from all of those hours in front of the piano because a good recital can be one of the best memories in a child's life. - 15634

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