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Discover six often-overlooked performance skills to help piano students shine this holiday season. From speaking confidently to managing sheet music and creating impactful moments, these tips go beyond the music to elevate the art of performance.
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Items Mentioned and Other Related Content
Organizing Your Life With Notion workshop
Digital Organization Coaching series
Transcript
The holiday season is upon us, which means that piano performances will abound—whether for a gathering of friends and family or formal holiday recitals.
You and your students have spent a lot of time preparing the music. Today, we’ll go beyond the music and explore six non-musical performance skills that might be easy to overlook covering with students.
These skills—while small in detail—will help your students advance the art of presenting, performing, and communicating.
I’m Amy Chaplin, an independent piano teacher, and this is The Piano Pantry Podcast. In this space, we talk about all things teacher life-related, from organizing your studio to getting dinner on the table and all that comes between.
Let’s get to it.
Before I get into things, I just wanted to give you a couple of dates you might want to save in your schedule for next semester.
First is the next Organize Your Life with Notion workshop put on by myself and Joy Morin. It will be held on Friday, January 10, 17, and 24 from 1:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time. Visit PianoPantry.com/notionwait to join the waitlist.
The second is the online version of my digital organization small group coaching series, which will be held every Friday from January 31 – March 7 from 1:00-2:30 pm. Visit PianoPantry.com/getorganized to join the waitlist.
OK, so onto our easily missed performance skills.
The first skill is speaking slowly and clearly when introducing themselves and their piece. Some of these skills—like this first one—are not something I have students do during a large recital but try to incorporate in smaller settings—like mini recitals or even group classes when there is no written program.
For several years now, my students have performed at our local library during a city-wide Christmas event. The library does all the setup, and we just show up. The library has a small amphitheater-like setup inside. Students have to hold a hand-held mic, which is another skill in itself—learning to speak with it close to your mouth without touching it and say their full name, piece, and composer. We talk about speaking slower than what feels normal, and articulating their words more—having clearer diction. Again, I tell students speaking clearly means they might not feel like they’re speaking completely normally.
For example: Hello, my name is Amy Chaplin and I will be playing an arrangement of Silver Bells by Phillip Keveren.
The second performance skill is a musical one, but one that I find I have to reiterate over and over, and that is how to start and finish a piece. Not the music itself but the space before and after the performance. We talk about taking as much time as they need to adjust their bench, taking a deep breath, focusing, and hearing the music in their mind before they begin playing.
As far as ending the piece goes, I don’t know about you, but getting a student to give the end of a piece its full proper length and breath as they come off the keys always takes a bit of cajoling – especially for younger students. We talk about it over and over and over in group class. Whether it’s a crisp ending where they have to come off the keys and pedal quickly or a longer note with a gentle release, it’s always a balancing act getting them to let go of the hands and the pedal at the same time and hold it an appropriate length – especially if there’s a longer held note or fermata at the end.
And then giving that one-second beat where their body holds and releases in a way that tells the audience it is over. I tell them this is just as important as the music itself as it gives the audience time to absorb the music and feel the impact. That brief pause can transform a good performance into a really memorable one.
The third non-musical performance skill is regarding the logistics of the physical sheet music itself if they’re not playing by memory—when to place it on the piano and when to remove it. If they’re bowing when going on stage, do they place it on the piano and then bow, or do they bow with it in their hand? Do they then grab hold of their sheet music before bowing after the performance, or do they step out to bow and then grab it? Personally, I do not have students bow before a performance, only after. I ask them to bow and then grab their music. You just have to hope they don’t forget to turn around and retrieve it.
The fourth non-musical performance skill is confidently looking the audience in the eye and smiling both when introducing themselves and when finishing a piece and taking their bow. It’s important to make sure we talk to students about the fact that performances aren’t just about the music; they’re also about connection. A simple smile and eye contact with the audience can set the tone for their performance. It can be hard to do when nervous, but taking that moment to engage shows confidence and professionalism.
Just a brief pause to let you know that for the first time since launching Patreon, you can get 50% off your first month of membership! Use the code BLACKPANTRY at checkout. Visit pianopantry.com/patreon. Valid through November 30.
Rolling into our final two items today.
The fifth non-musical performance skill is learning how to turn pages—both for themselves and for others. Personally, I do find learning to turn their own page a skill more appropriate for intermediate-level students than elementary students because fo course, most of the elementary music is only 1 or 2 page anyway.
Now, sometimes we can avoid that for performances. If students have a 3-4 page piece and are not playing by memory, we will sometimes photocopy the third and fourth page on heavy cardstock so it doesn’t easily blow away so they can lay the whole spread out on the piano. The copy goes into the recycling bin once the performance is over.
Learning how to turn pages for each other is something I love having students practice during group classes. I sometim es even assign older students to turn pages for each other during actual performances. Students have to learn to follow an unfamiliar score and take cues from the performer on when to turn the page. We talk about turning from the bottom corner for better control of the page, prepping the page corners ahead of time if possible so they can easily grab hold, turning the page swifly but with control, staying far back enough that they’re not in the performer’s space but can still read the music, and not blocking the audience view. This is one skill I particularly enjoy working with students on.
The sixth and final non-musical performance skill is similar to and yet totally different from the fifth one: getting experience using a Bluetooth pedal. I’ll admit, I’ve intended to give students experience with this but never remember to do it myself but it’s on my list!
Especially with intermediate to advanced students, just exposing them to the fact that a digital music tool like this exists is important in this day and age. Considering they will be using my iPad and Bluetooth pedal, I would only have them do this during lessons or group classes to practice and have the experience. I wouldn’t want them to do it in a performance unless they able to have plenty of practice using it prior to the performance.
So there you have it, six non-musical performance skills that may be easy to overlook covering with students but that are important still the same—speaking slowly and clearly, the important times of silence before and after a performance, the logistics of what to do with their sheet music before and after their performance, confidently looking the audience in the eye and smiling, learning how to turn pages, and using a Bluetooth pedal.
Did I miss anything? You might be saying – you didn’t cover bowing. My answer to that is that I was going for skills you might not always think of to work with students on. Bowing is a pretty solid given for most of us I would love to hear about any other non-musical performance skills you like to work on with your students. Be sure to share with me on social on Facebook at Piano Pantry or on Instagram at Piano Pantry Amy.
By the way, if you’re interested, I do have a performance checklist download that includes two different checklists: a performance checklist that covers things like taking time to adjust your bench, thinking your music before playing, bowing, and more. The second one is a day-of-your-performance checklist. Helping students think about things like not doing any formal practicing on the day of a performance, avoiding caffeine, and so forth.
These are great to use for a performance class or just to give to students leading up to a performance. Find the link to this, along with the transcript of this episode and anything else mentioned in this episode, at PianoPantry.com/podcast/episode148
