Master Your Recital Performance with These Pre-Recital Practice Tips

Spring is HUGE for spring recitals! I personally spend at least 2 weeks working on recital prep with my students. We act out how they will get onto the “stage”, bowing, performing (including releasing the final note and what to do with their hands or instrument) final bow, and then returning back to their seats. We do this over and over each week to just make it super easy for even the youngest student to remember come recital time when nerves are high.

Recital prep starts 3 weeks before the recital date. I’ll explain why below. But first…

🎶 Secrets to Success: How we do recital prep in my studio

1) Pick a place near your piano to have the student sit in while they wait “their turn” to come on stage.

2) Introduce them as you will in the recital, with their name and the title of their piece. After their name is called they will then come on stage, place their music on their stand or bench of the piano and turn to the audience to bow, then they will sit and prep to play.

3) I always instruct my students to take a deep inhale before they begin playing, again as a way to help reduce the nerves.

4) Once they are done playing, hands gently in their lap then stand and SMILE (at their mom) and take their bow. They then depart the stage back to their seat. I keep the music and will hand that back to them at the end —one less music rustling around while other kids are playing. You could collect their music beforehand as well, but I found most kids like having something to hold on to help them not fidget so much.

ALWAYS, whenever someone is bowing, each student should clap just like they want to be clapped at when they perform. We even practice clapping in lessons.

3 weeks before the recital we practice this process at least 3 times before we move on to other music if there is time. Lots of talking and explaining each step, and how to bow (hands at their side not in front and back)

2 weeks before the recital we have “Distraction Week”. This is where I enlist my children to pretend to be the most noisy audience ever. My kids will literally try to distract my student while they are playing. The goal, the student can ignore all distractions. But I still call them up and have them bow and follow the same step-by-step process.

The week of the recital is recital prep week. Shortened practices because the point is to run through their recital piece 3 times following the steps of sitting in their seat, being called up, bowing, playing, bowing, and returning to their seats. By this point, they have got it down. So the lesson will be super short anyways and you don’t want your students playing their sone more than 3 times anyways.

Happy Teaching!