Performance Report

ShiroKuro But at about page 3, I realized that I had been holding my breath, and if I didn't start breathing, I was going to fall off the bench. I also noticed that my hands were shaky.

I think this is important. I vaguely recall for my first recital that I had written in 'BREATHE' at a couple spots in my music. Maybe you could do that for the pieces you are preparing for the next performance and make sure whenever you practice you are practicing breathing at those spots as well.

I agree with P1 - things probably started to get sketchy because your attention wandered to breathing, shaky hands, etc. This seems like a difficult thing to control in the moment.

Overall it sounds like a good report though - it's great that you survived and you feel good about it.

ShiroKuro Wow, that's quite a roller coaster ride!

My guess is that the audience enjoyed your performance very much, especially as you nailed both the beginning and the end.

On the other hand, it's great to see your analytical approach and taking this experience as a learning for the concert! Good luck!

ShiroKuro When it was my turn, I got up, set up my foot pedal, put a folded up towel on the non-adjustable bench, got settled....

At first, I thought you meant you were setting up one of these things:

ShiroKuro So I feel pretty good about it.

Great!

My experience with holding my breath: I need to remind myself to breath out, and then breathing in happens by itself. Sometimes, I literally blow out, the way I would blow out candles on a birthday cake. I would look at the music and, similar to JB_PT, at appropriate spots, I wrote "out".

ShiroKuro The shakes you get in an actual performance situation are almost impossible to replicate, so it's hard to practice "playing through the shakes" or, practice "thinking through the shakes."

Yes, shaking is hard to replicate, but are you ever stressed out because of something unrelated to the piano? Try to play at those moments. It is really, really difficult.

But overall, great experience, and you have 2,5 weeks left to practise! The concert will be fine.

I forgot to tell you to breath! Sorry. One of the standard things I tell people when they are going up to play "Don't forget to breath!" Deep breaths before you go up are good too - helps with the nerves.

Congratulations! I wish I could say it gets easier, but that has not been my experience! But I keep doing it for some reason...

ShiroKuro Well done.

I tend to agree with Sam and in my experience the feeling of being nervous before a performance doesn't go away. How the nerves manifest may change and uncontrolled shaking hands should hopefully disappear as you become re-accustomed to performing. The good times for me are when I am thinking about the music more than the audience. I am beginning to believe that a good idea is to quietly hum the tune to oneself whilst playing rather than just relying on the piano to deliver the music that is in your head.

Hi Shirokuro

Well done. Regardless of your issues, you played, and you performed the piece to the best of your ability. That is all you can do. I'm sure everyone enjoyed it.

I've never had shaking hands. When I've been really nervous, I've had sweaty hands, but never shaky. So nerves affect us in different ways.

I asked my Piano Teacher's husband about how to stop worrying (ahead of actually playing them) about bits you find difficult when doing a recital. I should say he is an ex-concert Pianist who played at a professional level for decades. And he basically said to me - concentration.

I played Piano at a gig a week ago on Saturday, for a jam night I attend. It was a variety of different line-ups of musicians playing pop/rock songs in an unplugged style (no full drum kits or electric guitars!). One of the songs I played on was an acoustic version of A-ha's "Take on Me". It was just me on Piano, an acoustic guitarist and a female singer. The song has simple chord changes, and when stripped back & played slower it's a beautiful song. I never liked the original 80s hit.

Well we got through 2/3 of it and there was a little 8 bar instrumental section. Not a solo, just a delicate interlude. Somehow I got lost during this and so played a couple of wrong chords and notes. Afterwards when I analysed what I'd done, I realised I'd lost concentration - probably thinking how great it was sounding - whatever it was I just know that I stopped focusing, and my mind had drifted elsewhere, probably only for a second or 2. I wasn't really nervous, so it had nothing to do with nerves. More nerves might have helped me!

For this gig I wasn't reading sheet music btw I was playing from a chord chart. Though I treat them exactly the same.

Cheers

ShiroKuro Wow, thanks for sharing that story and congrats on your performance. I can almost feel it myself! You're mostly able to play without thinking about it except that you can't completely do that. And if you're disengaged, it's kind of jarring when you start to think about some details, especially how things are going kind of nice. Classic trap!

So interesting what @Simonb said about concentration and nerves. I think a loss of concentration is a pretty good interpretation of what happened when you weren't breathing but everything was going fine. For me, it's possible I start thinking of other things. Sometimes I find a good balance is for me to follow the melody as I play. That way I don't overfocus on too many details but stay engaged. Same as what @keff said.

It sounds like you have a lot of positive takeaways from the experience. There's no way you could have learned those things without going through it. I agree with you about playing more than one piece. I find that I start to settle in after the first few minutes. Especially AFTER I've made some mistakes and just get that out of the way. I just responded to your other thread without realizing you already performed!

ShiroKuro Also, I think just having had this experience, after such a long break, will make performing much easier the next time.

But I need to work on controlling my brain, and I'm not sure how to do that.

The shakes you get in an actual performance situation are almost impossible to replicate, so it's hard to practice "playing through the shakes" or, practice "thinking through the shakes."

No, you can't just make yourself shake. But here's what you can do: dress rehearsals.

A dress rehearsal should be as much like the concert as you can make it:

• Wear what you'll be wearing for the concert.
• Eliminate all possible disturbances: turn off your phone, put a "do not disturb" sign on the door, remove any pets...
• If possible, set up the lighting to be focused on you and the piano.
• Record if you like. Recording puts an extra stress on you and may make the whole thing feel more like a performance in front of an audience. You can listen to the recording afterwards, but you don't have to.
• Decide when the "concert" should start, and wait until the hour you've fixed. If possible, wait in another room. Don't be tempted to start early: the waiting needs to be practiced too!
• While you're waiting, use your imagination: imagine the audience, breathe deeply, do whatever you do to concentrate your mind and calm your nerves.
• When it's time to start, go to the piano, sit down and play the programme just as you would in the concert: don't stop, and if you mess up do your best to get back on the rails.

The important thing is to use your imagination to create an emotional state similar to what you experience in the concert.

It read your account and actually see it positively. You played through the whole piece, with a strong start, and continued even when you had to repeat a part. The flubs you encountered are things you had not thought of and didn't know about, and now you do. There is an actual recording of your performance for you to study and work with. All of this will help you prepare for the performance in a few weeks.

The first recital I ever did (violin) I went faster and faster: the poor accompanist asked why I had done that. I didn't know I'd do that or that it's common; from then on, I aimed for "slow" which meant it came out "normal". Without that first experience, I'd not have been able to prepared for that.

I'm glad to read that you will be playing several pieces next time. I've had a thought about recitals for a long time. It seems quite unnatural to sit and sit, waiting for your turn, then you're up for your shortish piece and you're supposed to be "instantly on". What performer does that? Nor can you be "just about to perform" for the half hour or however long that you sit there waiting for your turn. If you have several pieces, you can sort of "enter the room" - it seems more natural.

My one and only little recital with piano, there was a naughty boy who must have had sand under his feet, and he scraped his feet noisily startling me. I lost my place in the RH, kept going for three measures with only the LH until the RH found its place again. My teacher and a musician told me afterward that it was good, and the only unprofessional thing was if I fussed about it afterward - nobody would notice the slip-up.

On another occasion I came close to crying because a family member had passed away recently. I asked the same teacher how to suppress emotions. To my surprise he suggested using them, and "audiences are always moved by tears" - um? It was an interesting thought. Certainly the opposite of suppressing emotions, but sort of riding them?

Those are my probably useless thoughts.

Just remembered seeing a documentary of Argerich, and seeing her pacing before a performance, basically saying "I can't do this.", state of nerves - and then performed brilliantly as always. And she has been performing for decades.

keystring On another occasion I came close to crying because a family member had passed away recently. I asked the same teacher how to suppress emotions. To my surprise he suggested using them, and "audiences are always moved by tears" - um? It was an interesting thought. Certainly the opposite of suppressing emotions, but sort of riding them?

Music is all about emotion. Specifically, invoking it through prompting internal visualizations from the audience.

Reba McIntyre (I think) once said that it was extremely difficult to go out on stage during a tour and sing heartbreak songs one after another. Yet it is those specific songs the fans want to hear. It's her job as the performer to put the emotion of a heartbreak into her music.