Whether you’re a brand new teacher

Whether you’re a brand new teacher, planning your first recital, or you’re reading this just to compare notes (pun intended HA!), my purpose is to share recital ideas that maybe you have not yet considered.  Doesn’t every teacher.

Planning your Recital Step By Step

Whether you’re a brand new teacher, planning your first recital, or you’re reading this just to compare notes (pun intended HA!), my purpose is to share recital ideas that maybe you have not yet considered.  Doesn’t every teacher want their recital to run like clockwork?  From the moment you begin formulating recital plans ’til the final bow, let’s get on with the show!

• Rehearsal – Preparing students musically and psychologically
• Prelude – Securing a venue
• Program – Positioning and coaching your “players”
• Virtual Recital – iMovie? YouTube? Zoom?
• Finale – Teacher on Stage?  To play or not to play, that is the question
• Applause – Ending on a good note
• That’s all folks…almost – Awards, photos, reminders and instructions
• After Party – Decorations, refreshments, soft sell to gain more students 
• Clean up, Lock Up, Follow Up – Would you invite yourself back??

“Practice only on the days you eat.”

Shinichi Suzuki’s famous quote is my top favorite musical quote of all.  It is also the motto for my Mostly Piano Music Studio.  Unfortunately  most of us teachers have at least one student that would prefer to starve!  My advice to them is “If you’re not practicing, someone else IS!  Raise your hand if you’re OK with still trying to master “Mary Had a Little Lamb” the day you’re eligible for Social Security, knowing you started working on it as a child?”  Just a little exaggerated food for thought.

Team Up!  

If this is your first recital or if you only have a few students, consider collaborating with another teacher to combine your students in recital.  Contact the teacher six months or so beforehand in order to adequately prepare, divide tasks and work together in harmony.

Become a Repertoire Detective  

Listen at every lesson for pieces that students appear to especially enjoy playing.  I end most lessons with students playing one favorite piece of their choice.   These favorite pieces often make it to the recital program.  Students are passionate about these pieces which enables the teacher and student to work together more quickly and easily towards perfection.  Pieces that students play really well or choose to play as a favorite should be considered.  A special repertoire sticker can be placed on the music for several pieces.  Student should continue to practice these pieces, knowing that you will  hear them randomly until the recital.

Aproximately two months before recital, recommend pieces from students’ repertoire choices and guide the student towards musical perfection.  No panic! They are already almost ready.  If you haven’t already done so, talk to your students about about the composer, the musical era and have them listen to your interpretation and or recordings of others playing the piece. Fine tune their rhythm, tempo, dynamics, musical expression and stage decorum.

Aid students psychologically.  Boost confidence by  being more generous than usual with compliments on their small successes.  Refrain from harsh musical critiquing at the last two lessons unless they are doing something exceptionally unacceptable.

Practice stage decorum during the last few lessons prior to the recital. Have the student sit or stand at the far end of the room.  Announce their name and applaud. They can practice how they will smile, bow, announce their piece (unless someone else is announcing them), adjust their bench, assume their hand position, take a moment to think, perform and bow.  Applaud again.  Younger students especially have fun doing this!

On recital day, students will most likely perform on a piano that they have never played before.  Consider having a dress rehearsal at the performance venue a week or so before the recital. You may want to consider amending your studio policy to count this rehearsal as a lesson.

If you’re not having a dress rehearsal, require early arrival on recital day so that each student will have the opportunity to play at least an excerpt of their piece before the recital starts and ideally before guests arrive.  After having done all of this preparation, just imagine yourself on recital day! You’re the cool, calm, confident teacher surrounded by several rows of students dressed for success, surrounded by their biggest supporters, eagerly awaiting their turn to share their favorite pieces with a model audience!

Prelude

Keep a checklist. Think of possible frequently asked questions (FAQ) from parents and students.

1. Secure a Venue

Piano shops, music stores, music schools, community centers, churches, school auditoriums, nursing homes, senior centers, children’s hospitals, malls, spacious private homes and yards are just a partial list of places to host your recital.    Here are questions you can ask to  help you select a venue that suits your needs:

1. Is there a well-tuned quality piano available for your use?
2. Can you pay for a tuning in exchange for at a discount for using the venue?
3. Are there rules about re-positioning the piano for the recital?
4. What is the cost of renting the space?
5. What are the downpayment and full balance deadlines?
6. Is there a time limit and are you being billed by the hour?
7. How and through which door should you access the building and secure it upon leaving?
8. Are there any parking restrictions?
9. Are there elevators or accommodations for the disabled?
10. Are there rooms or spaces that are off limits to you?
11. Can students earn community service hours (nursing homes, senior centers, hospitals, community centers that invite the public may agree to sign student forms for service hours)
12. What is the name and contact information of the person that will sign community service forms?
13. Is there a health protocol?
14. Are you allowed to sell tickets or accept donations?
15. Is there a contract or other guidelines that you must follow
16. Will you be able to access microphones, sound system, extension cords, podium, music stands, folding chairs, a  room with tables and chairs for refreshments,etc?
17. Where can you serve refreshments?
18. Is there a kitchen?  Are you allowed to wash dishes, use utensils, microwave, or refrigerator?
19. Will you need to remove trash?
20. Is there someone you should notify upon leaving?
21. What is the best way to contact the main contact person and the alternate contact person?

2. Notify Parents and Students

Communicate your expectations via phone, text, email or printed letter.   Making your expectations clear will minimize the number of phone calls you receive on recital day. Contact neighborhood groups such as www.nextdoor.com, local newspaper, radio to announce your event. If the venue has a newsletter or if the recital is at a community center or church, ask them to include it in the newsletter or if it’s church, they can include it with their announcements and church bulletin.

Distribute flyers and invitations, to parents and students a few weeks ahead. Include details regarding date, time, place, directions, parking, and where to enter.  Include contact info for yourself and the venue. This is the time to make your needs known and ask for help.  You may need  refreshment contributions in the form of food or financial contributions, assistance with set up and cleanup, passing out programs.  Donations or a recital fee may be needed to defray the cost of using the venue.  If you have a large number of students, you may need a parent or two sitting amongst your students to discourage chitter-chatter.

Convey your dress code expectations with examples; long fingernails, flowing sleeves, micro mini skirts may impede performance.  Your worst recital etiquette nightmares are worth mentioning to decrease the chances that these bad dreams will come true!  Walking around, talking, eating, entire families scrambling around to dash away after their child plays their last note are behaviors I have lost sleep over.  Don’t let this happen to you!

3. Advertise & Organize

Expand your audience by allowing students to access flyers and online or paper invitations.  Prepare gifts, awards, programs and certificates 2-3 weeks ahead. It’s a highly effective anecdote for recital-week stress. Bringing your copy of your student’s music can render you forever a hero should a student experience a wave of amnesia and you “just happen to have” their music.  Don’t forget your music for duet parts and your own music if you will be accompanying or performing a piece yourself.  Start packing a bag adding items from the suggestions above.  Check off each item as you pack.

4. Delegate! Don’t Hesitate

Ask your friends, students’ parents, and responsible student siblings to assist you.  Trials and errors have caused me to depart from my old ways of trying to do everything myself.  I now ask for help with shamelessly! Parents, friends and student siblings are capable and many are willing to assist you.  Below are some tasks to delegate:

Ushers– a friend that doesn’t mind not seeing the entire recital up close and personal can stand at the door to direct people to the recital area, bathroom, and tell them where to leave their food donations for refreshment setup.

Programs – one or two of your student’s siblings can  fold and/or pass out programs, or you can leave programs at the entrance or in the seats for people to access on their own.

Refreshments- If the recital is not catered, you will need a few people to help set up, serve, break down and clean up.  You may need each family to bring a dish or contribute monetarily for food, drinks and paper goods.

Master/Mistress of Ceremonies – A parent, teen or other adult can assume this task, but please (I beg of you) review your student’s names against your roster to make sure you don’t accidentally leave anyone off of the program.  Review names and composer’s names with your students and/or your Master/Mistress of Ceremonies if your have one. As much as I love “Amazon”, I wouldn’t want  Chopin to go “shoppin’”.

I prefer to assume the MC  task myself adding a little humor  or a short anecdote about the student as they approach the piano, but you may prefer to delegate the task or have students say their names and announce their own pieces.

5. Going Virtual?

Here are three ways to showcase your students virtually:

Virtual YouTube Video Recital using iMovie

Ask students/parents to record their performances and send them to you via email, text or if you want to receive them all in one place, dropbox is an option.

Here are three  ways to showcase your students virtually.

1. Compile a recital playlist on YouTube
2. Perform within a Zoom meeting
3. Create an iMovie, upload it to YouTube and share via a YouTube link

Program

The moment you’ve been waiting for is here at last!  Students arrive early, barely recognizable in suits and ties, frilly dresses, fresh haircuts and hairstyles like you’ve never seen before.  Not one is flaunting long freshly-manicured fingernails, flowing sleeves or micro-mini skirts.  Warm-up time goes smoothly.  You whisper your last minute do’s and don’ts and review proper stage decorum as you seat students in order of performance.

The Master/Mistress of Ceremonies approaches the microphone.  A few parents stand against the wall aligning themselves in the best possible position to adjust their tripods, camera lenses and phone filters to capture these treasured moments in their best light.  A hush falls over the audience as the MC reminds the audience to turn off their cell phones, refrain from close-up photos while students are playing (makes some of them more nervous), tell them where the bathroom is while reminding them of proper concert etiquette, etc. Some may want to start with a short prayer before the first student performs.

We will now begin with our first student, Pianista. She is 5 years old and has been playing piano for three months blah blah blah. She is going to play “Ode to Joy” by Ludwig van Beethoven.   You help her adjust the bench as you sit in your folding chair on her left to play the duet part.  The audience is wowed out by her playing, her outfit and her cuteness.  Next, next, next…all students have performed. Whew! You feel relaxed again- almost.

Now it’s Your Turn!

To play or not to play? That is the question.  From teacher to teacher there are various points of view.  As a child always considered my teacher’s performance as the highlight of the recital.  I walked away amazed and inspired. The dose of musical adrenaline from the teacher’s performance was enough to keep me practicing in hopes to one day “play like THAT.”

I strive to invoke a similar feeling in my students. Performing has helped me to gain students at the recital or because of the recital.  Teacher performance seems to reinforce to the parents that their child is in “good hands.”

Teacher performances can enlighten as well as educate and motivate your audience musically.  Practicing can be a challenge especially if you have a full studio or a full-time job plus music students.   Planning to perform is an incentive to keep your skills current.  You certainly wouldn’t want to flop and have a meltdown in front of your students!  If you like performing, play mostly classical music and you’re not Yuja Wang, there are not an abundance of performance opportunities where you can play whatever classical piece you want.

Recently I have read that some teachers feel that recitals are an opportunity for students to shine and that teachers are “showing up” their students if they perform at recital.  I’m sure this is a valid point to be considered in some instances.  In my particular studio with over 40+ years of performing on recitals and often combining studios with another teacher who performed as well the response has always been quite positive.

If you choose to perform, know your audience. If there are a fair amount of young children in the audience, choose a short piece for yourself and limit each student to one or two pieces.  Limit your recital to roughly an hour. Preserve your sanity!! That being said,  For yourself, choose a familiar, unique or humorous piece or a piece that represents a culture or genre of music that they may not have heard aside from you exposing them to it.  Arrangements of kid-friendly pieces such as arrangements of movie theme or video game songs work well.   Jazz or popular standards, shorter classics or show pieces tend to hold the attention of the young, the old and those who may not be heavy into classical.

Here are three examples of pieces that the audience really liked when I played them at student recitals.

Finale

You bow and extend your hand toward your students signaling them to stand up, turn towards the audience, bow, turn back around and resume their seats. Thunderous applause!  A parent presents you with a lovely bouquet of flowers.  Job well done!

Your Mistress of Ceremonies helps you present each students with a certificate of participation and a piano-themed pencil.  You present special awards to your three most outstanding students to acknowledge their achievements.

Smiling students line up holding their certificates in front of them. Pictures Please! Click! Flash! Snap!  As students step out of their poses, you thank everyone, remind them where the bathroom is and to make sure they have their child’s music books (I find at least one book left behind every recital!) At the parent’s request a few students pose with you and snap a few more pictures. You direct your music studio family towards the refreshment tables and shortly thereafter you join them.

Colorful sheet music butterflies created by students adorn the walls, as if to accentuate the early Spring atmosphere.  Piano-themed tablecloths, plates, napkins and cups in coordinated patterns are stacked neatly on the refreshment table.  Centerpieces that resemble a keyboard octave adorn the center of each guest table. Everyone is trying to get a closer look. What IS that? Ohhhh vanilla wafers for white keys and Kit-Kat bars broken into their individual strips laid on top for the black keys.  My oh my… an incredible, edible keyboard!

There’s a small table on the side with studio business cards and brochures attached to a studio pencil under a sign that says “FREE TAKE ONE”  A tall middle-aged man who “has always wished he could play the piano” grabs a card and a brochure and tucks them guardedly into his inside jacket pocket.

Parents chatter excitedly as they share their enthusiasm about today’s performance.  Students eye the chocolate chip cookies deciding how many cookies they’re going to pile atop a small paper plate to their parents’ dismay as they become increasingly anxious for the line to move more swiftly.  Succulent dishes face all, waiting to be plated and savored by those who appreciate you and find value in what you do for them and their children.

Clean Up/Lock Up/Follow Up

Take one last glance.  Does the venue look the same or better than it looked before your recital? If you were in charge of contracting out this recital space, would you invite yourself back based on the way it looks?  If your answer is “yes”,  secure the venue according to your contract.

Make a mental note to communicate your thank you’s within 24 hours.  A written note or thank you card would be appropriate for the venue.  Send an email to parents, students and all others that contributed to the success of your recital.

Looks Like You’re Good To Go…Home To Begin Planning For Your Next Recital!

Your full workday plus overtime is done. You’re feeling exhausted but by some miracle you’re looking forward to the next recital.  As you witness musical growth in your students your inspiration has been turned up a couple of notches.  Your students are really absorbing your instruction.  Your time and effort was indeed worthwhile!