A few weeks ago, I gave my final classical guitar degree recital at Yale School of Music, and it was one of my best performances ever. Here are a few things I did before, during, and after the performance that may also help you achieve good results:
- Before: Identify and address aspects of the performance that are stressing you out.
- About a month before a big performance, it’s important to have a realistic view of how your preparation is coming.
- In my case, I realized I had a lot of memorizing to do, and I have always struggled with memory, so for this concert, I decided to invest in a page turning app and to play with sheet music.
- This allowed me to spend more time working on the music and forgo the excessive hours I usually spend making sure each piece is properly memorized.
- Bottom line is, if a month before, you’re still uneasy about an aspect of your performance, it’s time to make a decision that will help you feel secure about it.
2. Before: Perform your program every day at least two weeks before the concert.
- Don’t warm up — your fingers will probably feel cold on stage, so this is a great opportunity to get used to that feeling.
- Use these run-throughs to practice focusing your thoughts, constantly bring your mind back to aspects of the music (ie. sing the melody, pay attention to the dynamics, feel the general emotion, etc.)
- Play for other people as often as you can, friends and colleagues are perfect for this, you can even play for out-of-town relatives over Skype.
- If you want to be very prepared, schedule a less stressful concert a week or more before the big one, old-folks’ homes and libraries are always looking for musicians to give concerts (some even pay!)
- You should record and listen to your performance every few days, this is a good way of pinpointing the areas you need to work on in practice (listening to an hour-long recording can actually save you hours of unneeded practice later on)
3. During: Accept that no matter what happens during the performance, it is all part of you sharing your personality which is what everyone came to see.
- The fact is, no one came to your performance hoping to see a robot perfectly execute every single note.
- Everybody at your concert is there because they want to see YOU and YOUR personality expressed through your playing.
- You literally can’t mess up your own personality, it’s impossible!
- If you screw up a passage, that’s YOU, and the only way you can come to accept mistakes is if you realize they are all a part of who you are.
- This is the hardest concept to learn, but accepting it gives you complete freedom on stage to bare your soul and truly connect with your audience.
4. After: No matter how it goes, be gracious and thank your audience.
- Be content with how it went.
- If it didn’t go well, you have lots of information to reflect and learn from — and honestly nobody else cares, but they will care if don’t show your appreciation for their support.
- If it does go well, understand that the moment is fleeting — that is the beauty of music: it can never last forever!
tonebase gives you instant access to knowledge from the world’s greatest guitarists, performers and educators. Now FREE for a limited time:https://tonebase.co
About Chris Garwood, Co-Founder tonebase
Christopher Garwood began his classical guitar studies at the age of 5 under the tutelage of Alan Johnston at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minnesota. Highlights in Chris’s early career include first place finishes in competitions such as the Pacific Guitar Festival, Thursday Musical, and Schubert Club Scholarship Competitions, as well as participation in the Guitar Foundation of America International Youth Competition. Chris has a Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California where he studied with William Kanengiser as a Trustee Scholarship recipient, a full merit scholarship. Chris studied with Benjamin Verdery at the Yale School of Music in New Haven, CT, and graduated with a Masters of Musical Arts degree in May, 2017.
