Do I have to participate in the piano recital?
If you take lessons, there will likely be opportunities to perform in recitals.
Among those, some of you may wonder, “Do I have to participate in piano recitals?” Based on my roughly 20 years of experience as a private piano teacher, I’d like to share my thoughts here.
Is it okay if I don’t participate in the presentation?
This has been happening quite a lot recently.
Moreover, I sometimes get asked this when I’m just starting lessons with no recital experience.
For now, I'll answer, “Sure.”
That's because even if someone is shy, lacks confidence, and refuses in the first year, it's surprisingly common for them to agree quite easily by the second year.
here
No, that won’t do. You are required to participate in the recital.
Or were there any teachers who answered assertively like that?
If they’re told “No,” would the parents say, “Then we’ll leave!” or would they back down with, “O-okay… we understand…”?
I’d really love to ask (you about it).
Personally,
You don't have to attend, but it's better if you do.
It is.
Isn’t it okay not to be overly respectful of a child’s feelings about things they haven’t experienced yet in a world they don’t know?That's what I sometimes think.
Benefits of a piano recital
http://o-dan.net/ja/
It’s motivating. I have a goal.
First and foremost, I think this is definitely the best.
Piano practice is really plain and lonely.
In school, even with something like the times tables, if you work hard you might think, “Yes! I said them the fastest in class!” or, “Tch, there are two people better than me. I won’t lose to them!” There are those little daily competitions, and winning or losing makes you happy or frustrated. But with piano, you just practice silently at home and show what you’ve done in a weekly lesson with your teacher, and that’s about it.
At most, it would be something like accompanying once a year at a school arts festival, or at the chorus competitions in junior high or high school, where it might catch people’s attention.
The recital is the biggest event at the piano school.
We will practice for that biggest event.
We'll do it whether they cry or get bored. Some children even develop a fever the day before.
Taken at face value it may sound like mere drudgery, but this very shackle of pressure—playing in front of others—becomes the power that lets you rise above your usual level and conquer more challenging pieces.
And I believe that both the sense of accomplishment when things go well and the feeling of frustration when they don’t are highly meaningful.
The more effort you put in, the greater the result.
And by going through this once-a-year experience, you will steadily improve.
It’s really hard to perform something all by yourself in front of people without looking at anything.
If it doesn’t quite click for you, how about imagining something like this?
Memorize an entire story of about 20 pages and recite it in front of people.
Doesn't it give you a bit of a shiver?
It will probably take a few months.
It’s hard enough just to memorize it, and yet you have to stand alone in front of everyone, with only one shot on the actual day.
Of course you’ll need to memorize it, but just reading it flat will sound monotone, so you’ll also need to get into the right mindset to add expression, vary your intonation, and practice speaking clearly so everyone can hear you.
On the day of the performance, you might be so nervous that your voice shakes, your legs tremble, and you worry about forgetting your lines… No matter how many hundreds of times you practice, you’ll probably still feel full of anxiety.
This can all be replaced with piano.
- Training to achieve good articulation = good touch and a resonant tone
- Memorization = memorizing (music) by heart
- Expression = Using fingers, arms, and the whole body instead of the voice to add expression to sound.
- Voice trembles = fingertips tremble, arms stiffen
To overcome these, it’s not enough to simply practice; you also need to listen to yourself objectively through recordings and practice performing in front of others as if it were the real thing.
Even when things usually go well, unexpected things can happen when you get nervous.
I made mistakes in places I never mess up, and some notes just slipped out. I want to see what happens to me when I’m nervous here, then review it and tighten things up even more.
Children experience things like this with their brains running at full speed from a young age.
By experiencing it firsthand, they learn the importance of effort. There is the joy of working hard and succeeding, but they also come to know the fear and harshness of failure. The harder a child has tried, the more they cry out of frustration when they fail. That’s only natural.
But don't you think this is something extremely valuable in a child's life?
However, if you truly can’t bear this mental state and feel that performing is no longer possible, I will of course respect that.
I can’t agree with giving up before you even try, but I really want you to give it a shot at least once.
You might find that once you actually try it, it turns out to be surprisingly good. At a sports day, kids who are confident in their athletic ability enjoy it and feel motivated, but for children who are really bad at sports, having others see how slow they run can be painful.
Since athletic ability doesn’t improve so easily, no matter how much you practice running, if you always end up last, you may develop an inferiority complex and come to dislike exercise itself.
Among my students, there are some who are good at the piano but not good at sports, so there are kids who say, “Parents don’t have to come to the sports day.”
Even so, I can’t get out of school events, so I have to take part unwillingly; but I think, in its own way, it helps build tolerance for unpleasant things.
And since I’m not good at sports, I’ll focus my efforts on what I’m good at—piano.
Another benefit of the recital is that you can listen to other students’ performances.
"The piece that [Name]-chan played was lovely." "I want to be like [Name]-chan."
It gives you a chance to discover songs you didn’t know before, and it also helps you maintain or boost your motivation.
No matter how well the teacher plays the example, and no matter how much your mother tells you to practice, when you learn the fact that “the talented so-and-so practices two hours every day,” and then see the result of that in the performance before your eyes, you really feel, “So this is what practice means...”
exactlySeeing is believing.It is.
Therefore,
Participating in the recital would be a plus for the child, but if it's so distressing that they feel like throwing up, it's okay not to take part.
I think so.