It’s recital season and today I have for a list of random reflections – just two days coming out of my own studio’s year-end recital – my 15th spring recital to be exact. I almost made this episode a replay week as I am totally beat as always after the event, but as I was setting up this past Sunday, several things occurred to me and I always feel like it’s best to hash out thoughts as they come to me in time so that’s what you’re getting today. A bit of a brain dump.
It’s not the first time we’ve talked recitals here. You can catch more recital talk in episode 16 – Recital Planning Made Easy, episode 17 – Recital Program Formats: Pros, Cons, Ideas, and Resources, and episode 118 – Recital Programming Considerations.
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Random reflection #1
I’ve been through at least 3 variations on students getting a chance to play the piano at the venue over the last 15 years and this year I finally landed on what works for me.
For a good many years I organized a formal rehearsal at the venue but at some point that just started feeling heavy – it was just more work to organize access to the venue twice. So, I started doing rehearsals at the studio so students at least got a practice performance and we could talk about little details like reminders which I’ll talk about here in a minute.
While this was great, it didn’t fix the need for students to get a chance to feel the touch of the piano they would be playing on. So for a couple of years, I had all students arrive 30 minutes early and take turns going up to the piano one by one and playing just a few bars of their piece.
This was fine, but then, I heard my friend Christina say on her podcast that she makes it part of the event. So, she plays on the piano a little accompaniment pattern and students come and improvise for a few bars one by one with the audience in the room before recital starts. I tried that once it it just stressed me out – plus, the kids always want to play a bit of their piece and I can’t blame them.
This year, I decided to space out arrivals. We do a 2:00 recital on a Sunday afternoon so I had roughly 30% of the students arrive at 1:15, 30% at 1:30, and the rest at 1:45. I made sure anyone who was playing a duet arrived at the same time. This worked so much better. It felt more relaxed and the kids felt like they could play more than just a few bars of their piece. I still have to manage the process and shuffle them along one by one at the piano, but it didn’t feel like this massive arrival and rush to give everyone opportunity to play.
So, spaced arrivals for the win. Families just wait in the foyer of the church while this goes on.
Random reflection #2
If there is anything that I find myself encouraging my students the most on over and over prior to performances, it’s that they need to remember to smile when they’re done and to not stress if they make a mistake.
We know how hard these things can be. In the moment you’re so caught up in the intensity of being in front of people even when you play well it can be easy to forget to smile when you’re done and not look either terrified or like you just want to get off the stage as quickly as possible. The last thing I usually say to my students before we start the recital is – don’t forget to smile.
As for stumbles – over and over and over I have to remind them that most of the time the audience barely notices and it feels much harder and heavier to them than to anyone else. The audience is cheering for them and thinks nothing of their little stumbles. What matters is that they keep going. We can’t remind our students enough that the goal is not perfection. Yes, we want to do our best but what matters is can we keep going. After about 5 years in lessons, I think they finally start getting it. LOL
It’s always so easy in life to pick at the things we missed or didn’t do, let’s do everything we can to hep our students celebrate what they did do well even in what they might feel was an imperfect performance.
I have one gal who has been in lessons for 5 years and it has been like pulling teeth for a few years to get her to play anything with any kind of speed. This year this was her year.
She played two quickly moving pieces and had a couple of tiny stumbles but made it through great overall and yet afterward that was all she could think of was that she stumbled. She recovered so well from them though it was barely noticeable and I had to remind her of her huge achievement in working toward playing pieces with a faster tempo.
Random reflection #3
I can’t believe I ever got by without an assistant. A few years ago when I was employing one if my former students to help me with a bit of Piano Pantry work – mainly posting to social media and assisting with my digital coaching, I decided to have her be my sidekick for recital day to take the pressure off. She was back in town from college so it was perfect.
It never seems like there’s a lot I have to do but when it comes down to the day-of, even that small list leads to exhaustion. Over the last few years I’ve tweaked what the assistant does and there are three big things that have helped me the most.
The first is to have them be in the foyer when people arrive to tell them where to drop their food for the reception and to keep anyone other than students from coming into the sanctuary.
The second is to have them take photos during the recital and the recognition time afterward using my phone. Oh, and don’t forget to set your screen so it doesn’t auto lock after a few minutes. LOL. Having them take photos is also a nice gesture for parents to let them know that if they want to just sit back and enjoy the recital, I will have photos available I can text to them if they want – they just have to ask. I usually have maybe 2 or 3 families who ask for them. It also makes it easier when I’m juggling the microphone and certificates and awards to not have to be the one also taking photos of students after they get their awards.
The third thing that helps me a lot is to have them man the reception area. They don’t really have to do much just make sure everything has a serving utensil in it and making sure people find the correct room for eating in and so forth. They also help me clean up afterward – wiping down the tables, making sure there aren’t crumbles on the floor, and resituating any tables we’ve moved around in the space.
Random reflection #4
This brings me to my packing list. I’ve definitely refined this over the years and I keep this list as part of my recital planning timeline and packing checklist document – I’ve both blogged and done an podcast episode about this so if you just Google Piano Pantry recital planning timeline you’ll find it.
It’s just a basic document that you can use as a starting point to make your own list, really. Keeping this list from year to year gives me such peace of mind knowing I haven’t missed anything. I’m always so relieved to have it when it’s time to gather items up for the event.
Items include:
Random reflection #5
Give a reminder to families that there still lessons the week after recital whether you do it at the end of the recital as an announcement or if you send a text the day after. This morning I sent a text to all my families that said:
Great job to everyone in yesterday’s recital! I hope everyone left glowing as I did. For peace of mind – yes, we have lessons this week. 3 more weeks will end our 2025-2026 lesson season. We will have a two week break and then the 2026-2027 lesson season runs June – May. I’ll be back in touch about summer in a few weeks.
It never fails that I have someone the week after recital miss their lesson because they assumed they didn’t have a lesson or I have people text and ask so this year I decided to get ahead of the game and make sure this communication was executed and even added to my recital checklist.
I now have an item on the timeline planning checklist for after the recital which just includes items like unpacking, making notes and updates in my planning documents for next year, and now a note to text all families a reminder about how lessons will finish for this cycle.
Random reflection #6
Recital themes for the win. I’ve done a couple of themes in the past but it’s been at least 8 years. This year I decided to bring back a theme and it was really well received.
Not only did we have a theme of the Wild West, but I used AI to create a little story of the Wild West. I gave it a list of all the songs being performed and asked it to tie them together into a storyline. There was just one or two sentences between each piece, but it really brought the pieces even more to life. Even I enjoyed the recital more. Plus, it helped fill the time between students as they were swapping out their place on the stage and getting situated. I included the story on the slides but also read it aloud and had a physical printout that was just a simple list with the story line and pieces so if anyone wanted to see the big picture of how far along we were, they could follow that.
Not only did it make the event more interesting for the audience, but I think for the kids too. Everyone who wanted to was great dressing up for our theme. It stretched my skills for finding repertoire. It was a win all around and I will definitely be doing a theme next year.
Random reflection #7
Thanks to my friend, Joy Morin, I make a tiny verbage tweak this last year or two. Instead of giving out awards – I now call it a time of recognitions. It’s a small thing but I like what it does for the meaning. The term recognition feels like more of more of a focus on behavior vs. awards focusing on the tangible item like the trophy or plaque. Even though I do give out tangible certificates, trophies, and plaques, recognitions just feels a bit softer.
Also, I made a few minor tweaks to actual awards I give this year. One was that students who have been in lessons for 8 years get a music dictionary and the kids were really excited about that. ****I do a music pin at year 3 and a trophy at year 5 and 10. Normally my students who are at 8 years get a plaque for their “legacy award” for being with me for 8 years but this was the first year I ran into a quandary where 2 of the 3 students had been taking lessons for 8 years but only 7 with me so I wouldn’t be giving the plaque. I actually like this better now though so the legacy kind of it’s own special recognition and not tied necessarily to the years of study awards.
Random reflection #8
The week after recital, one thing I have always done is to take time to record students performing their recital piece for one final run-through. This is just for my own records and these video performances have been what I come back to every year in March when I take time during the lesson to look back a bit at the student progress over the past few years. I always break out a few videos so it’s easy for students and parents to see tangible progress. Making it a point to record every student performing their recital piece every year has really helped streamline this process.
Of course you could also do the recording the week prior to the recital to put them in a bit of a performance situation but I’ve decided I like doing it after when we’re more relaxed and it’s a nice way to also say goodbye to the piece.
I’m sure there are more but that’s what all came out of my head initially that I was feeling really good about this year and reflecting on.
I hope you were able to pull some ideas or inspiration from my reflection list and that you take time after your recital to make notes to your future self as well. As always, we’re all about practical and sustainable rhythms for your teacher life around here.
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Thanks in advance! If you want links to anything mentioned here today, visit the show notes at PianoPantry.com/podcast/episode182
Also, just a note that registration is now open for the digital organization retreat I host in my home every summer. It will be held August 12-15, 2026. For more details visit pianopantry.com/retreat.
Thanks for being here!
